


Apocalypse Ascension

by Whenever_the_Fancy_Takes_Me



Series: Apocalypse Ascension [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Drug Addiction, Explicit Language, F/M, Love Triangles, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Romance, Sexual Tension, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:56:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3528527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whenever_the_Fancy_Takes_Me/pseuds/Whenever_the_Fancy_Takes_Me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A war hero, a spy, a survivor, and a smart-ass, Skye Shepard has already lived through more than most people, but even she wasn't entirely prepared for the head-strong Spectre that drags her back into the thick of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Spectre

* * *

 

This was not Skye Shepard’s first rodeo. A savage thrill went through her as she flipped the batarian thug over her shoulder and threw him into the wall. His grunt of pain drew a grin from her and she struggled not to laugh as he slid down the wall and slumped on the floor ass-end up.

She turned to the rest of the thugs that had ambushed her outside of the bar. The rhythmic thumping of the music matched the helter-skelter beat of her heart. “So boys,” she blew one black lock out of her face, “which one of you gorgeous shit heads is next?”

One of the thugs came after her with a roar. It took her less than a second to size him up. _Turian. Weak spots: spurs, abdomen, neck, chin. Charging head first, upset the balance and take him out._ She simply stepped aside and crouched as the turian charged past. Her shoulder slammed into his tender stomach, his breath leaving him in a jagged whoosh, and hooked one arm around his legs, using both his momentum and the force of her own body as she stood to flip him face-first into the ground. She winced in mock sympathy at the crunchy sound his mandibles made as he forcefully kissed concrete.

Skye didn’t spare a glance for the turian lying motionlessly on the floor, but set back up into a ready stance, grinning at the three thugs that were left, two humans and a batarian. She curled her fingers in a come-hither motion, “You know, if you want to get to know a lady, I can tell you that mugging her outside of a shitty nightclub won’t make the best first-impression.”

The thugs looked at each other and nodded, as one, they pulled out their weapons.

_Shit fuckity fuck_! Shepard dived as the humans opened fire and came up running, the batarian close behind with an electric baton. The alleyway she was currently hauling ass in was dark and full of trash and she took advantage of the tall towers of crates and pallets stacked up against the walls, tipping them over as she ran past to make things harder on the assholes chasing her.

She laughed as she ducked around a corner and saw the glory of all glories: stairs. Skye cloaked herself and scurried up the stairs while the thugs floundered through the trash in the alley. She came up over the roof and dashed across the flat surface. From her vantage point above them, she could see the batarian shoving the trash out of his way and the two humans hot on his heels, each with an M-6 Carnifex at the ready. _M-6’s? Where do common criminals get M-6’s? I don’t see gang colors on them. There must be a black-market supplier around here somewhere. I’ll drop C-Sec a tip later, it’s their problem._

This was too lovely an opportunity to pass up. With a practiced hand, she pulled her trusty pouch of all-things-nasty to bear and chuckled to herself as she carefully selected and threw satchels full of _palaise_ powder down on the unsuspecting heads of the three sods below her. The thugs yelped as bright orange dust exploded around them and then they screeched as the powder began stinging their unprotected skin. M-6’s clattered to the ground, momentarily forgotten, as the humans tried to dust themselves off, to no avail. The batarian shouted and cursed in pain, the powder sticking to his slightly moist skin. His attempts to rub the _palaise_ from his arms and face only smeared it in deeper and he howled.

Shepard couldn’t help herself, she uncloaked, laughing at the men hopping around in the filth of the alley. She gave them all a snappy one finger salute, “Next time boys, just buy a lady a drink would ya?” She walked away, the sound of their curses drifting merrily up after her.

Skye was still chuckling as she made her way back to the docking station and the Normandy. The soldier on guard, Private Carlton Tucks, snapped to attention as she walked up. She returned his salute with a jaunty grin and strode into the air lock. Tucks blinked rapidly, Shepard the Ice Queen had just _grinned_ at him.

Shepard took a deep breath as the Normandy welcomed her home. The slightly chemical bite of the purified and recycled air was comforting in a way that only someone who spent years in space could understand. Shore leave was over, for her anyway, and she was glad it had ended with a good romp amongst the scum of the earth. There was nothing like a one-sided fight to get the endorphins flowing.

“So whose heart did you break this time Shepard? You look like the cat that ate the canary.” Jeff “Joker” Moreau, the snarky pilot of the Normandy, was standing outside of the decon room with his arms crossed.

“Good God,” Skye clutched her chest, “so you aren’t sown into the pilot’s seat after all. I guess I owe Alenko five credits.”

Joker smiled, “A man has to have snack breaks.”

Shepard laughed. “As to your original question, I had a lovely night with,” she paused to recount her assailants, “five gentlemen at Kitty Mau’s down in Hagar district. Two humans, two batarians, and a rather headstrong turian.”

“I should be seriously disturbed, but you do have a reputation to uphold.”

Shepard’s brows climbed upwards, “I have a reputation?”

“Of course,” Joker shrugged slightly, “everyone knows that Shepard the Ice Queen is a deviant.”

“You know, gossip is bad for the soul.” Shepard eyed Joker as she brushed by him, “I hear that gossipers often find itchy things in all of their underwear.”

Joker groaned as he limped after her onto the bridge, “Please don’t leave that crap in my shorts again, I swear I learned my lesson last time.”

“I make no promises Joker, the Karma fairies are fickle creatures. Anyway,” Shepard crossed her arms and leaned against the bulkhead as Joker carefully settled himself in the pilot’s seat, “has our package arrived?”

“Yes,” came Joker’s dark mutter, “crusty bastard. _Spectre_ Nihlus Kryik is on board and I swear, if that stick was any farther up his ass it would be coming out of the top of his head. He could give your poker face a run for its money too.”

“Well I’ll refrain from playing cards with him then. Is Anderson with him?”

Joker nodded, “They’re actually waiting for you. Take-off is in ten.”

Shepard thumped a fist onto the back of his chair, “Thanks.”

She turned and walked through the CIC to the com room where Anderson had taken up residence. The sound of voices made her stop short of opening the door.

“Look, I’m not saying that Shepard isn’t an excellent candidate, and God knows I couldn't be more supportive of your choice, but there are other Alliance officers with records that shine just as brightly. Why Shepard?” Anderson sounded perturbed.

“Yes, there are many exemplary soldiers to choose from, but I believe that Shepard is the obvious choice.” The other voice was striking and multilayered, definitely turian, only two larynxes could produce such a rich sound. “Look at what she’s overcome and accomplished in such a short time; she survived the raid on Mindoir, she rounded up a ragtag bunch of Alliance soldiers and civilians to defend Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz, and then just a year later survived the thresher maw attack on Akuze. She’s shown an extreme knack for survival and a natural ability to lead; people instinctively look to her for leadership. She’s magnetic.”

Anderson sighed, sounding tired, “You’re right, of course, but I hate the idea of throwing her into this, she’s already been through more than most.”

“And that’s why she’s perfect. She won’t crack under the pressure.”

Shepard hit the door control and strode into the com room, her boots clicking on the floor. She kept her expression neutral despite the unease swirling in her gut. What exactly was Anderson worried about throwing her into?

“Sir,” she snapped to attention, saluting her commanding officer.

“At ease Shepard.” Anderson gestured at the tall turian standing beside him, “Commander, this is Spectre Nihlus Kryik, he’ll be accompanying us on our run to Eden Prime. The Council sent him to oversee our systems test.”

Shepard inclined her head warily towards the Spectre. He was tall, towering over Anderson, and his stark white familia notas were vivid against the dark red of his face plates. Shepard tensed when his eyes met hers. His eyes were an intense shade of pale green and his gaze was merciless. It was superstitious nonsense, but she couldn’t help but feel like he could see straight into the darkest parts of her mind. Her chin rose in defiance of his searching stare and one of his brow plates raised as if in acknowledgement of her resolve.

Nihlus clasped his hands behind his back, “Lieutenant Commander Shepard, it is good to finally meet you.”

“Likewise Spectre Kryik.” Shepard suddenly felt irritated. After what she had overheard, her curiosity was getting the best of her and the small talk was irksome, “Forgive my bluntness, but why the hell is a Council Spectre playing nursemaid to a simple shakedown run?”

“Shepard…” Anderson’s sigh was long-suffering, “being blunt does not necessarily give you leave to be rude.”

“It’s fine Captain Anderson,” Nihlus’s voice was pacifying, but Shepard heard the thrum of amusement in his subvocals, “I appreciate a soldier that speaks their mind.”

“You’ll regret saying that to Shepard, she finds it difficult to stop sharing her opinion once she’s started.”

Shepard was taken aback; it was unusual for Anderson to speak so informally about members of his crew to anyone, much less someone outside of the Alliance. Nihlus only chuckled, “She’ll need that single-mindedness.”

“Sir,” irritation made her bite the word, “can you please fill me in, what is going on?”

Anderson nodded and turned to the console behind him and an aerial view of Eden Prime popped up on the vid screen. “We aren’t just going to Eden Prime to test the Normandy’s stealth capabilities.”

She fought the urge to roll her eyes, “Really.”

Nihlus made a small sound beside her that sounded suspiciously like laughter, which he hid under the pretenses of clearing his throat.

Anderson simply narrowed his eyes at her and continued, “Earlier this week, an archaeological dig team uncovered an intact beacon that they believe to be a Prothean artifact. Spectre Kryik is here to secure that beacon during our run by Eden Prime.”

“That’s not the only reason I’m here, however.” Nihlus stepped forward and speared her with that penetrating gaze, “I’m also here for you.”

“What did I do _this_ time?” Shepard crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one leg, “I must be in trouble if the Council is sending Spectres after me.”

Nihlus shook his head, his mandibles flaring in a grin, “No, I’m here to evaluate your performance on Eden Prime. You’re coming with me to retrieve the beacon. I've put your name forward to be considered for the Spectre program.”

Shepard fought down the eagerness that thrilled through her, “Me? The first human Spectre? I’m not saying that I’m not honored for this chance, but why would a turian nominate a human for the Spectres? I was under the impression that your people had little love for mine.”

He shrugged, “Perhaps, but I see the potential in humanity and I believe you are the perfect ambassador for your species.”

“Ambassador?” Shepard snorted, “Look, you really don’t want _me_ in any kind of political position; I have about as much tact as a drunk krogan and even less patience. The crew calls me the Ice Queen for a reason and it’s not because I’m a people person.”

Nihlus simply fluttered his mandibles again and smiled, “Then you’ll fit right in with the Spectres.”

Anderson shut off the image of the dig site on Eden Prime and turned towards her. “First things first, we have to successfully retrieve the beacon and bring it back to the Citadel before you can be considered for the Spectres. Afterwards they’ll most likely be sending you on more missions with Spectre Kryik here for further evaluation. In the meantime, we have six weeks before arrival on Eden Prime, I suggest you start considering the members of your ground team and begin prepping them. Dismissed.” Shepard saluted, did an about face, and exited the room.

“Shepard.” Nihlus pulled her aside as the com room door slid shut. She cursed inwardly when she involuntarily flinched away from his touch; the last thing she wanted was for him to think her a racist.

“Yes Spectre Kryik?” Once again she felt like hitting her head on something solid, like a wall. In her embarrassment, her voice came out short and cold, sounding for all intents and purposes like a giant “fuck off.”

To his credit, Nihlus didn’t seem to take any offense, he simply gave her a friendly nod of his head, “If you have any questions, you can find me in the cargo bay. Oh, and just call me Nihlus.”

Shepard released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as he walked away, feeling like his eyes had finally released her. She surreptitiously rolled her shoulders feeling extremely uncomfortable for some reason. _I need something to drink… and something to punch…_


	2. Xenophobes, Punching Bags, and a Really Dirty Towel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard gets frustrated and of course Nihlus is involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left kudos on the first chapter! This is my first attempt at fanfiction so I hope I'm not botching it up too badly, and I will try to update more often, but just bear with me and I'll try not to let little unimportant things like life get in the way. Whoever you are, I love you for taking the time to read my work. Please enjoy!

* * *

Two weeks into the flight to Eden Prime and Shepard was ready to throw half the crew out the air lock. If she had to correct one more xenophobic soldier for referring to Nihlus as a “bird” or “bug face,” she was just going to shoot the next offender. God damn, but Alliance Navy soldiers were racist bastards, every one. She’d already had several talks with their navigator, Charles Pressly, about his continued discriminatory remarks about their resident Spectre.

Her fists slammed into the canvas skin of the punching bag hanging in front of her. She’d been hashing out her frustrations in the rec room in an attempt to keep the rest of the crew safe from her ire, but an hour later and her temper was still high. The sound of footsteps behind her made her pause and she growled.

She clenched her teeth and dug her fingers into the bones of her hips and addressed the person behind her without turning. “Jenkins, unless you want your ass handed to you again, I suggest you take your complaints about the lunch menu to someone else, mainly Negulesco, she’s the one in charge of the Normandy’s supplies. As Quarter Master that is _her_ job after all.” She wiped the sweat out of her eyes with the back of one hand.

“Actually, I thought you might like to spar with someone that can truly test your skills, the punching bag can hardly offer sufficient opposition.”

Nihlus’s deep voice rumbled through the small room and Shepard whipped around to see the Spectre removing his shirt, dressed in simple leggings and boots. She’d never seen a turian out of armor before and she couldn’t help but stare. He had broad, plate covered shoulders, but she could see pale, red-hued skin in the places not covered in tougher hide, such as the hollow of his throat where it met the hard ridge of his carapace, his stomach, and on the undersides of his arms. His arms were slender, the turians were not an overly muscular species, but she knew he was much, much stronger than he looked, and they tapered off into three-fingered hands. Her eyes roamed over his hide covered carapace, noting the way his sternum was sharp and pronounced, reminding her vaguely of the prominent breastbone of a pterodactyl, down to where his soft-skinned waist tucked sharply in above the pronounced bones of his hips. She was surprised to find that she found him pleasing to look at, if only because his body was so different.

She fought back a nervous smile. Nihlus made her feel uneasy in her own skin and she wasn’t sure why. She certainly had nothing against him and she didn’t dislike him, in fact she enjoyed his company. Despite the crew’s grumblings about the broody turian, she’d discovered that he had a surprisingly dirty sense of humor, something that didn’t fit with her notion of the stern, straight-laced face that the turians presented to the galaxy. It made him seem less of a mystery and more of a person. A person who was currently staring at her curiously with brilliant green eyes.

Shepard cleared her throat and shook the tension from her arms. She cracked her neck. “If you insist Nihlus, but don’t think I’ll be easy to take out just because you’re a Spectre. I’ve been told that I’m scrappy.” She chuckled, “Although that’s not the worst I’ve been called.”

“Of that I’m certain,” Nihlus took up a position in front of her and lifted one brow plate in a challenge, “but I’ve probably been called worse.”

They began to circle each other and Shepard silently sized him up. _Long arms means long reach, stay away from the talons. Keep to his left, he favors his left leg and he’s slower on that side._ He interrupted her inner monologue by springing forward. He feinted a punch to her chin with his left arm and followed it with a gut punch with his right. Shepard stepped into the feint, allowing his right punch to clip her side as she hooked her leg behind Nihlus’s left leg. She surprised him by gripping the edges of his carapace and twisting her body till she’d pulled him off balance and tossed him to the floor.

She smirked down at him, “Human: one, Spectre: zero.”

“You little pyjak.” He gasped, stunned from the floor.

“Pyjak, what are we, in kindergarten? You’re going to have to try harder than that old ma-

Nihlus erupted from the floor and had Shepard pinned on her stomach before she could even finish her sentence. She grinned into the mat that Nihlus was currently squishing her face into. This was going to be fun.

“Spectre: one, human: one.” Shepard gritted her teeth against the vibration of Nihlus’s voice into her back where he’d pinned her. He chuckled, “One, I’m only four years older than you, and two, _old man_ is just as school yard bullshit as _pyjak_. Where’s the famous Shepard potty-mouth I’ve been hearing so much about? Or did you bribe the crew to talk bad about you?”

Shepard heaved Nihlus off of her back and rolled out of his reach, not that the distance between them lasted long. As soon as she’d rolled clear, Nihlus was back punching and kicking, and it was all Shepard could do just to avoid the devastating blows. She gagged and fell to one knee as Nihlus rammed an elbow into her gut, forcing all of the air out of her lungs.

“You are such a bag of dicks,” she gasped, trying to inhale all of the air in the room, “I’m going to get you back for that.”

“Spectre: two, human: one.” Nihlus laughed, his subharmonics vibrant with amusement, “You certainly are creative, I don’t think I’ve heard that one before, although there was this asari on Omega who suggested that I was a part of elcor anatomy that should never be spoken of again.”

Shepard screwed up her face, getting to her feet again, “That’s disgusting.”

Nihlus grinned as she took a few deep breaths and shook out her arms, “Ready?”

She launched herself at him, determined not to give ground this time. This may just be a fun distraction, but she wasn’t just going to let him win to make him feel better. Shepard needed to know what she could expect of Nihlus on and off the field and this was his first test. For a minute, they traded blows on equal ground. She got Nihlus back with a sharp jab in his tender abdomen that left him momentarily stunned, but her advantage was a short-lived one.

There were no sounds in the rec room besides the loud, raw sounds of their breathing, the pounding of their feet on the matt, and the hard sound of skin cracking against hide as they fought. The subtle shifts of power, back and forth, the intimate space, the footwork as they dodged and dipped and spun around each other _; it’s almost as if we’re dancing,_ Shepard thought. It felt choreographed and the uneasiness that had dissipated in the beginning of their sparring match was creeping back in. She stumbled as Nihlus pushed into her face, close enough to kiss. _Kissing Nihlus? Doesn’t sound too bad._ Shepard froze. _The Fuck did I just think._

In the second that Shepard had stumbled, Nihlus had slammed his forehead into her face and she fell backwards with a yelp, landing hard on her ass. She clutched at her nose, which immediately began spurting blood.

“Oh shit, Shepard!” Nihlus lurched forward to help her off of the floor, “Damn I thought you were going to dodge that!”

Shepard tipped her head back and glared at the turian down her now crooked and bloody nose, “Du fug you did. Shid, I gotta ged do med bay before I bleed out tru my fade.”

She pushed past Nihlus, waving off his concern as he reached out to her. The blood was dripping down her neck and soaking into her sports bra. Damn, it was her favorite one too. Nihlus followed behind her, looking shamefaced. She ignored him, but took the towel he offered her silently.

Shepard hissed through her teeth when she gingerly pressed the towel to her nose. Nihlus scratched the back of his neck in a display of guilt that was so human she started to laugh, but the building headache turned it into a groan.

“Ah, you ok?”

“Do I loog okay?” Shepard hit the button for the elevator and stepped inside when the doors hissed open. Nihlus followed close behind.

“No, you look sweaty and you’re covered in blood.” Nihlus’s voice was strangely flat, and not even his subvocals gave her any insight to his emotions.

“Chalk one up to Cabtain Obvious. I _amb_ sweaty and covered in blood and, oh, I wonder who is resbonsible for dat, huh?”

He sighed.

Shepard laughed through the blood soaked towel, “What sweaty, bloody women are turnovs? Right, I rebember, only Krogan find dat attractib.”

“I didn’t say I was turned off by the sight of your blood Shepard, or the sight of a woman unafraid to get a little _dirty_.” Nihlus thrummed deeply behind her, his subvocals telling her that he was only too happy to call her bluff.

Her face lit up on fire and her mind went blank. There were no witty comebacks leaping from her mouth, but a dumb “uh” sound. Shepard realized with horror that she was officially flustered. Of course the elevator opened right then, and of course the mess hall was full, and of course everyone stopped and looked at their executive officer who was currently slack jawed, sweaty, long black hair in a frizzy mess, and had blood gushing from her face.

And so they all stood there, staring at each other. Shepard, panicked and nursing a broken nose, the crew, trying to figure out why the hell their xo was covered in blood, barefoot, practically in her skivvies, with a severe case of bed head, and the hulking turian behind her, half dressed and trying desperately not to laugh. Shepard shook herself and tried to stand with some sort of dignity.

“Ad you were.” _Well so much for dignity Shepard._

The soldiers in the mess hall suddenly found their freeze-dried lunch rations incredibly fascinating, and Shepard was able to skulk into the med bay with a tiny scrap of pride left. Nihlus was still on her heels when Dr. Karin Chakwas looked up from her work station. She took in Shepard’s condition, her handsome face not registering the slightest surprise. Of course, this wasn’t the first time Shepard had flopped down into her med bay covered in gore, hers or otherwise.

“I trust you are finished breaking non-vital parts of the Commander, Spectre Kryik?” Chakwas moved to take the bloody towel from Shepard’s hand and inspected her broken nose. She briskly, if not unkindly, turned Shepard’s face side to side to better see the extent of the damage.

Shepard sighed, “It wad an accident. We were sbarring. I didn’t duck.”

“Mmhmm.” Dr. Chakwas sounded _incredibly_ concerned with her backstory. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, “This is going to hurt Commander.”

“Yeah I know, bud it wouldn’t be duh first-

There was a sickening crunch as Dr. Chakwas forced Shepard’s broken nose back into alignment.

“Fuck a duck!” Shepard yelped, “Give me some warning! Shit!”

Dr. Chakwas slapped an ice pack into her hands and crossed her arms, “Shepard,” she started dangerously, her smooth British accent managing to fill just that one word with a world of censure, “you _know_ how I feel about that language in my med bay.”

“Sorry Dr. Chakwas,” Shepard groaned, pressing the ice pack to her abused face, “consider me chastised.”

“Good,” Dr. Chakwas nodded with a faint smile, “now both of you out.”

Shepard turned to find Nihlus staring at her oddly, the look in his green eyes distracted, almost calculating. She swayed up to him, the top of her head barely coming up under his chin.

“Hey Nihlus.” Shepard raised one brow.

“Hmm?”

Shepard smacked him between the eyes with an open palm. His mandibles dropped in shock. Shepard smirked and stepped around him, “Human: seven, Spectre: six.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake.” Dr. Chakwas moaned from her desk.

Shepard couldn’t help the laugh that rolled from her as she left the med bay and walked back to her quarters.


	3. The Rabbit Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things shouldn't be remembered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who need the warning, there are ptsd attacks, mentions of rape, torture, drugs, and traumatic experiences involving a minor (don't hate me, it's a touchy enough subject, I know) so if any of those are triggers, you have been warned. This fic is rated mature right now, but I'm probably going to give it an explicit rating after this. In the meantime, please enjoy and let me know what you guys think.

“Shepard, that coffee for me?” Joker looked over his shoulder at Shepard who glowered at him over her mug of instant joe.

She grimaced as she took a sip of the bitter black liquid, “Nah Joker. You wouldn’t like this stuff anyway. You like your coffee fluffy and full of sugar and creamer. I like mine black, like my soul.” She tried not to gag as she gulped down another scalding mouthful. _God this stuff is foul_.

“Yeah, I can tell you’re enjoying that.”

She shrugged, “If it’s any consolation, no amount of sugar or creamer makes this palatable. I know, I’ve tried.”

He laughed and looked back up at her, “So, uh, the _bruises_ have started to fade.” He snickered, “I can’t believe the Ice Queen got her ass handed to her by a turian.”

“Hey!” Shepard spluttered, “I got him back at least.”

“Smacking him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper is not ‘getting him back’ mine fearless leader.” She could _hear_ Joker’s eyes rolling.

Shepard frowned into her mug of sludge, wondering how much trouble she’d get into if she just dumped it on him. Joker was saved from a boiling coffee shower by Anderson calling Shepard over the com.

“Commander, I would like to see you in the com room.”

She leaned over Joker to press the return, “Sir, yes sir.”

Joker shooed her out of his space, “Hey now, you have your own button, you don’t need to press mine. Quit touching my stuff!”

“Are you going to tell mom?” Another mouthful of caffeinated tar glooped down her throat.

“That was in very poor taste Shepard,” Joker frowned, “my mom died when I was-

Shepard simply raised an eyebrow at him and continued to fight her gag reflex on her “coffee.”

Joker’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he cleared his throat and turned back to the controls, “Point taken. Man I _hate_ it when you pull the parents-murdered-by-slavers card, it makes me feel like an ass every time.”

“That’s because you _are_ an ass.” Shepard thumped the back of his chair in her customary farewell, “If I’m not back in thirty minutes, make up some crisis that desperately needs my attention.”

“Got it Commander.”

Shepard turned and grudgingly headed for the com room where Anderson was sure to have another “If you’re done embarrassing yourself in front of the crew” speech at the ready. If she never heard another sentence start with “If you’re done” it would be too soon. She sighed and winced, her face still ached.

She raised her mug to the crew as she passed through the CIC, careful not to make eye contact with Pressly in case he’d found another way to complain about aliens on an Alliance ship. It didn’t matter that most everyone else was fine with Nihlus, Pressly was still paranoid.

After five weeks, most of the crew had settled in with the fact that Nihlus could possibly become a semi-permanent fixture on the Normandy. Word had spread, as it always did on a ship, about the “top-secret” mission and Nihlus’ role in selecting the first human Spectre candidate and that had smoothed the ruffled feathers of quite a few crewmen. In fact, the men had been playing Skyllian Five with Nihlus every Wednesday night, and loosing horribly, but Nihlus was such a genuinely fun person to play with that they didn’t seem to complain much.

Of course, Shepard was conspicuously absent to their weekly game, despite the numerous invitations she’d received. Nihlus still put her too on edge for her to let her guard down around him. She grimaced into her coffee. If she told herself that enough she might start believing it. The truth was, she was attracted to him, and that boded ill, for _everyone_. So, she was implementing avoidance maneuvers.

Over the past three weeks she’d gotten some strange looks for plastering herself up against bulkheads, hoping Nihlus hadn’t noticed her. She’d duck into the med bay until she was chased out by Dr. Chakwas’ unerring aim with her blunted darts (which Shepard had later learned Chakwas had bought specifically to throw at people who bothered her), and it was becoming difficult to walk anywhere in the ship without checking to see if Nihlus was close. _And I thought Pressly was paranoid._

She strode into the com room and had to stop herself from turning around and walking back out. Nihlus was speaking in hushed tones to Anderson, who’d noticed her, _damn it_ , and motioned for her to come in. Shepard took a bracing gulp of her coffee and Nihlus looked up at her mid grimace. His mandibles pressed close to his face in a frown. _Great, he thinks I hate him, fucking awesome timing on the coffee Shepard._

He inclined his head to Anderson, their conversation finished, and walked towards her. Shepard bit the inside of her cheek to stop from smiling and hurriedly took a swig of bitter black.

“ _Shepard_.” Nihlus leaned in as he passed her, his multilayered voice made her name sound exotic and sexy.

The tingle his passing left on her skin had her sputtering into her coffee. He laughed as he walked out of the room and Shepard was left with coffee dripping from her chin and Anderson glowering in consternation.

If there was a rock close by, she was going to bash her head in with it, and then she was going to crawl underneath it. She brusquely swiped the coffee from her face and came farther into the room. “Sir?”

Anderson sighed and ran a hand over his close cropped hair, “Shepard… when I asked you to help make sure that Nihlus was comfortable on the ship…”

“Whoa,” Shepard nearly threw her now empty coffee mug at her commanding officer, “let’s not go there please. There is _nothing_ going on between me and the Spectre, please god do not even _think_ about it.”

“Shepard I’m not an idiot and I would hope that I know you well enough to be able to tell when you’re avoiding someone and why.” Anderson crossed his arms and glared her down with a face that she’d seen too many times since he’d rescued her from Mindoir.

Anderson had been the one who’d found her nearly starved to death, wandering half-dressed through her burned village in the middle of winter. He’d stayed close to her when she was in the hospital and after she’d been foisted off on foster care until she’d landed herself in the hospital again, Anderson had ordered her turned over into his care. Since then he’d been her guardian and adopted father. That he was now her Captain was unbelievably awkward and pretty suspicious. She was sure that he wasn’t above pulling strings to get her in his crew to keep an eye on her.

It was Shepard’s turn to sigh, “I’ve got it under control sir, it will not affect this mission.”

Anderson placed a hand on her shoulder, “Don’t do anything that will jeopardize your chance to get into the Spectres. I’d hate it if anything were to hurt your heart or your career. Remember,”

Shepard rolled her eyes, but finished the cheesy line he’d been feeding her for years, “Smart choices kid, the dumb ones leave you dead. God, you’re so strange.”

“I’ve heard that somewhere before, she was all skin and bones, but she rolled her eyes just like that.” Anderson smiled and stepped back, “Now go get cleaned up, you have coffee stains on your shirt.”

Shepard looked down and cursed, indeed there were drops of coffee on her white shirt. She zipped her hoodie up to cover the splotches and left the com room. First stop was to rinse out her mug and hang it back up and then she marched straight to her quarters to change shirts, and possibly set this one on fire. She was obviously not above taking her frustrations out on inanimate articles of clothing.

Her shirt was halfway over her head when Nihlus just barged into her quarters like he owned the damn place. “Shepard I’d like to talk.” He stopped and looked her over, “Or I could come back later.”

His eyes skipped over her bare skin, lingering on the brilliant colors of the tattoos swirling over her arms, and back. She hesitated, suddenly self-conscious, but she covered it up with bluster, and hoped that Nihlus didn’t know enough about humans to be able to tell that the red flush that rose to her skin was embarrassment.

“Fuck it, just come in.” Shepard growled and threw the shirt across the room. She snatched the clean one from the bed, “What do you need that is too important to be bothered with knocking first?”

“Nothing really,” Nihlus shrugged and sat on the edge of her bed, “just thought that I should know more about the human I’m going to put my reputation on the line for.”

Shepard shrugged into the clean shirt with a frown, “You have my dossier. Psych evals, performance evals, my record, you have it all.”

“Ah but those are just dry reports,” he leaned forward almost eagerly, “I want to hear the stories straight from the horse’s mouth.”

Shepard looked at him out of the corner of her eye, surprised to hear such an old human phrase fall so easily from an alien’s mouth, “Did you study human idioms? I don’t even hear humans say that one anymore.”

Nihlus looked a little sheepish, his green eyes downcast. She blinked. He was adorable. Fuck. She shook herself a little and forced a small smile, “I’ll humor you I guess, but I’ve repeated this old history so many times it sounds almost exactly like the reports.”

“Start at the beginning, with Mindoir.”

Tension flooded into her shoulders and she spun from him so he couldn’t see the slight panic that she knew was in her eyes. Mindoir was not a pleasant subject and no matter how many times she’d spoken of it, the old fear refused to leave. If he’d asked about Akuze or Elysium, she would’ve been fine, even lively as she recounted the details, because despite how gruesome those events were, they had nothing on the absolute horror of Mindoir. She covered her nervous movement by going to pick up the shirt she’d thrown. She wrung it in her hands and cleared her throat.

“My father and mother volunteered for the Mindoir colonization project when I was five. We’d been living on an Alliance base on Earth and my mother retired from the Alliance to go with my father. Mindoir was just a collection of farmers, good people, but few had any means to protect themselves from more than the indigenous predators in the area.” She cleared her throat again, “My mother taught me to shoot and to hide myself using my surroundings. She was an infiltrator when she was in the Alliance and old habits die hard I suppose. Needless to say I got myself into a lot of trouble growing up, you tend to try a lot more if you know you’re practically undetectable, not that I could ever sneak anything past Manami Shepard anyway.”

“Manami? I didn’t see that name in your file.” Nihlus looked at her curiously when his voice made her start.

She shook her head and tossed the shirt into her laundry hamper, mostly to keep herself from twisting it in her hands anymore, “No, you wouldn’t. She had her name changed to Hannah when she joined the Alliance, but when she left, she wanted to be known by her birth name again. Of course the villagers knew her as Shepard, only her friends and family called her Manami.” Shepard took a deep breath, _he only asked for the events of the raid, not your whole childhood, stop rambling,_ “Anyway, shortly after I turned sixteen, my mother sent me to a neighbor’s to help him rid his land of these dog-like predators she’d lovingly dubbed _kudaranai zasshuken_ , shitty mongrels. I left the house with her old Naginata IV rifle, effectively taking the entire village’s only true weaponry with me. The slavers landed as I was making my way towards the neighbor’s.”

Screams echoed through her head as a small door opened and a slice of nightmare spilled out. She slammed the door shut again and crossed her arms, turning to the viewport on her wall. The physical presence of the stars helped her pull herself out of the past and she continued, “They surrounded the settlement, such as it was. We were really nothing more than a small collection of farm holds that loosely bordered a small town square where we held a market or aired grievances and solved issues. By the time I was halfway to our neighbor’s, the slavers had already destroyed the outlying farms, mine included. When I heard the screams, everything my mother had taught me about self-defense disappeared and all I could think was that I had to hide, so I did.”

Shepard rubbed her arms, extremely aware of Nihlus’s eyes on her, she was also aware of the nightmares that would inevitably visit tonight. She swallowed, “There was this structure in the center of the square that was like a bell tower that we used to call in villagers for meetings or to celebrate births, weddings, etcetera, only no one except for me could actually squeeze into belfry where the town bell was housed; I was a small kid after all, so I hid there. The slavers set up their pens around the tower, so I sat and watched as everyone I knew was gathered beneath me into cages. Most of these people were not long for this world, they were either too old or too injured to be of any use to the slavers, and they took great delights in torturing them to death.”

“The thing about the Naginata… Ariake Technologies made them extremely quiet and almost specifically for infiltrators. So I started shooting my friends before the slavers could brutalize them until they died. The slavers couldn’t find me and they couldn’t hear when I fired, they just found the bodies in the morning, but they didn’t care, I wasn’t killing their inventory, just their sport. Eventually, I started hearing the villagers whispering about the _Angel of Mercy._ ” She snorted, “What an angel. Just a scared kid sitting in her own filth assassinating people she’d known her whole life just so the slavers wouldn’t torture them to death. Still, it wasn’t long until people starting praying to this _angel_ to mercifully _release_ them, and I obliged.”

She closed her eyes, but she still saw the wooden belfry, her breath puffing in a silver mist in front of her face, and the moans and cries of the damned boiling beneath her. The rifle was heavy in her shaking hands, she hadn’t eaten in three days, she’d been surviving off of snow melt, and her stomach was fighting its way to her spine. The inky void of her hell was broken only by the sputtering, dirty light of the various fires glowing dimly, either fireplaces that the slavers were warming themselves around, or homesteads slowly dying in the distance. She readied the sniper rifle into her shoulder and took aim at the blond head of Bridgette. They’d raped her seventeen times today. She was praying so hard that spittle was flying from her chapped lips; _killmekillmekillmekillmekillme_ was a prayer that spilled silently through the air reaching her with icy fingers that begged her to act. She lined up the shot. Bridgette looked up and she could see her bright blues eyes through her scope and the silent thanks filling them. The rifle didn’t even buck in her hands as blood spun from Bridgette’s head. The blond girl crumpled. And killing her had been easy.

Her voice had taken on a chant-like rhythm, but she was too engrossed in the memories to notice, “The longer I sat in the belfry, the fewer voices were left to screech in the dark, so the slavers moved them. I was so terrified that they would find me that I stopped breathing and passed out. When I woke up, they were gone and the scavengers had moved in to eat the dead that I’d left behind. I shot one of the dog creatures and roasted it over one of the fires the slavers had left burning. At that point, all I could think of was finding my parents so I went back to my own house. I had to stay hidden, slavers were everywhere, but they weren’t looking for a girl or expecting any escapees so they never even saw me. I found my father first. It looked as if they had just shot him without even bothering to subdue him. Callum Shepard was a big man, maybe they thought he’d be too much trouble, but he wouldn’t have, he probably would have tried negotiating. He was a smart man, not to mention gentle. When roused he had a temper that could level mountains, but even he knew that one unarmed man was useless against an army. And they just left him there with a hole in his head to be eaten by scavengers. I didn’t stop until I found my mother. She was behind the barn. She’d killed three, possibly injured a few others judging by the blood and the trail of bodies she’d left around the house, but one woman can’t stop an invasion by herself. They’d caught her, brutalized her, and stuffed her own gun into her mouth before they killed her.” Shepard swayed on her feet, “They didn’t even cover her. She was just meat.”

Nihlus laid a gentle touch on her arm. She whipped around, the heel of one hand cracking against his chest, the other reaching for a weapon at her hip that wasn’t there. Nihlus wheezed and Shepard returned to herself, her hand twitching as if it was missing the comforting weight of her gun. Heat blazed in her cheeks at the sight of Nihlus, clutching his chest at the foot of her bed, trying to get his breath back. Her hand throbbed from where she’d slammed it into the stiff bone that served as a sternum for the larger rib cage of the turians. It was definitely bruised and if a few of the delicate bones in her wrist didn’t have stress fractures she’d be surprised.

Shepard was now drowning in guilt and shame. She’d gone down the rabbit hole. It made no sense, she’d recounted the events of Mindoir so many times and she hadn’t ever fallen apart like this. She’d _never_ spoken of the mercy killings or how she’d found her mother before, not even with the therapists they’d forced her to see after they dragged her off of Mindoir. That she’d shared that with an almost total stranger scared her. That she had forgotten he was even there scared her. Agitation and panic filled her. “You should go,” She clamped her arms to her stomach to stop them from shaking, “go to the med bay.”

“Shepard I-

She didn’t look at him instead facing his reflection in the observation window, “You need to leave.”

In the window she saw Nihlus’s mandibles flatten to his face, an obvious sign of his displeasure and he looked like he was about to argue. She whipped around with a snarl, “Get out. Now.”

He bowed his head to her, piercing her with those eyes that saw too much, and walked stiffly from the room, the door closing with a quiet hiss behind him.

Shepard stumbled into her bathroom, nausea blinding her to all else. After she’d emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet she sat on the floor, pressing her flushed cheek to the cool metal of the bulkhead behind her. It was unlike her to lose it like this, but the guilt she felt over how she’d treated Nihlus paled in comparison to her fear of what tonight would hold.

With shaking fingers she pulled up her omni-tool and called Dr. Chakwas. Her cool voice sounded from her aural implant, “Commander, care to explain why Spectre Kryik is in my med bay with a fractured keel bone? What did you hit him with, a chair?”

“I’ll need help sleeping tonight.” She couldn’t keep the waver out of her voice and she cursed inwardly.

Chakwas’s voice was immediately filled with concern, “How bad is it.”

Shepard winced, the headache of repressed nightmares peeling the flesh from the backs of her eyes, baring the raw nerves. She swallowed down the rising bile, “Category Five, doctor.”

“Right, I’ll be up as soon as I’ve patched up Kryik.” Chakwas muttered darkly, “If I don’t damage him further.”

Shepard tried to infuse her voice with a mock humor she didn’t feel, “Don’t hurt him too badly, we still need him for the upcoming mission.”

She closed her omni-tool and let her head rest against the wall. There was a sick longing in her gut, a longing that came with the knowledge that the good doctor was about to feed an addiction that would one day kill her, but tonight she’d sleep without her mind eating itself from the inside.


	4. First Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Shepard wanted to know what the Judeo-Christian Garden of Eden looked like after the Fall, this might be it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter four, whee! In which we see Shepard the badass emerge; enjoy lovelies! As always, thank you for the kudos, they keep me wanting to write (nudge-nudge)  
> *bad stage whisper* and hearing from you guys would be awesome, I promise to answer you back!

* * *

This was the sixth meal she’d requested be sent to her room. She refused to be cornered by Nihlus again. After the episode in her room, he’d dogged her, demanding explanations, and not even Anderson threatening to space him had deterred him, so she’d locked herself away. Which pissed her off, Skye Shepard hid for no man, not even pushy turians who didn’t know when enough was enough.

Her reaction when she’d spoken of her past had scared the shit out of her, but after a good, medicated sleep, she was able to wake up, deal with it, and move on. She was good at moving on, she’d made a career out of it after all, but Nihlus seemed incapable of simply moving on. Dealing with him later on was going to be a bitch.

“Commander,” Joker’s voice crackled over her com, “Anderson has requested your presence in the com room, he said it was urgent.”

Shepard rolled her shoulders, “Copy that Joker. Thanks.”

She set aside the plate of nameless muck (pasta?) and pulled together her uniform. She twisted up her long black hair into a severe bun and stared at the woman in the mirror. Sunken, pale grey eyes streaked with blue and gold stared back from beneath the slashing wings of her black eyebrows. Those large, almond eyes looked out of place in her face, courtesy of her father. Her face was too angled and strong to be considered truly pretty, but she had always loved her high cheek bones and her expressive mouth.

Her mother had been a tiny woman from Japan, from whom she’d gotten her stick-straight, thick black hair, short height, pale skin, and soft step that made her a spy. Her proudly Scottish father had given her everything else, her eye color, her short temper, determination, and the strength that made her a soldier. It was hard to meet those eyes and not be reminded of all of her numerous failures, so she quickly pinched some color into her cheeks and turned away.

Shepard didn’t look at Nihlus when she entered the com room, but she was well aware of his numerous glances. Anderson looked up, his face was drawn and his lips were thin, he was almost definitely about to unload some bad news.

“This mission has just become complicated.” He clasped his hands behind his back, “Joker, if you would play the last transmission from Eden please.”

A vid screen popped up and the room was filled with the sound of gun fire. A soldier wearing Phoenix armor was shooting at an unknown enemy, fire flying past her. She ran towards the camera as explosions rocked the person whose helmet cam was sending the transmission.

“Get Down!” She shouted as blue fire erupted around them.

The picture was grainy and shaking, and it was impossible to see the enemy clearly through the showers of dirt, blood, and fire flying through the air. Gun shots and screaming filled the com. Another soldier slid to a stop in front of the camera.

“We are under attack, taking heavy casualties!” His voice smacked of fear and desperation and he covered his head as something exploded nearby. He turned and fired a few rounds at something off screen. “I repeat! Heavy casualties! We can’t-

An explosion nearly threw him flat and a soldier was shot down behind him, he shouted into the camera, “Evac, we need evac! They came outta nowhere-

The soldier stiffened in surprise and coughed blood onto the screen. He reached out as if to touch it before keeling over backwards. “Oh god, oh god, oh god.” The soldier with the camera turned as an earsplitting mechanical noise made the very air throb. The camera caught the horrified faces of the other soldiers before turning up to show what they were seeing.

Reaching through the sky like the hand of some ancient deity was a machine unlike anything Shepard had ever seen. The ship was monstrous, and just seeing it sent a primal curl of dread whipping down to her toes. “Dear God,” she whispered, “what is that thing?”

The noise continued to pulse through the com and block any other sound. The camera shook, tipped, and fell as fire ripped through the line of soldiers. Explosions shook the ground, and then the feed cut out, grey static replacing the last horrific moments of the soldier who’d sent the feed.

Anderson turned to her, “I’m having Joker make an FTL jump, we’re still two days out from Eden Prime and this will take us there in about thirty minutes. We need to get boots on the ground _now_.”

“A small strike team will be able to get in and out without drawing too much attention,” Nihlus shifted from foot to foot as if he was excited that the mission had become dangerous, “I’ll take point.”

Shepard turned with a snarl, “Fuck that, this is _my_ operation. You’re simply here to observe, that hasn’t changed. So sit back, shut up, and _watch.”_

Anderson nodded to her and looked back at Nihlus, “In this I have to agree with Shepard. I will say this, if the mission starts to go south, by all means step in, but unless that happens, leave this to my people.”

“As you wish Captain.” Nihlus glanced over at Shepard, who studiously ignored him, “Then I will go get my equipment ready and meet you in the cargo hold.”

Shepard saluted Anderson and trotted from the com room. It was time to collect Jenkins and Alenko and go kick some ass.

 

***

 

Jenkins was fidgeting with his assault rifle, an eager grin on his face. Alenko looked slightly sick and was squinting down at his feet. Nihlus was silently buckling the seals on his armor. That left Shepard, who was breathing deeply, finding that still place inside of her that was unaffected by the stress of battle. If she had any chance of pulling this off with a half-cocked rookie, a shifty biotic, and a nosy Spectre watching their every move, she needed to have her head in the game, but even she felt that manic energy of adrenaline surging through her system with every beat of her heart.

Anderson strode over to the back hatch and hit the button to lower the loading ramp. The hatch released with a hiss and opened in a gale of wind from the Normandy’s engines. He shouted over the noise, “Get in, get the beacon, and get out. That is your mission. Survivors are not your priority, I know that’s not what you want to hear, but this could become an intergalactic incident, so secure that beacon. Nihlus is only here to monitor the mission and provide necessary support. This is all up to you, Commander Shepard.”

“Aye sir!” She saluted and turned to her team, “You heard the man. Get your asses off the ship, we have a scavenger hunt to get to.”

Jenkins whooped and jumped down from the loading ramp onto the wildly moving grass, Alenko followed him. Shepard spared one last glance for Anderson before she jumped out after the two men. Nihlus landed with a quiet thump beside her and the Normandy’s engines roared as she prepared to leave.

“Alenko, Jenkins,” Shepard shouted over the thunder of the Normandy, “scout out the hill and secure the bottom, I want to know what it looks like out here.”

Jenkins saluted, “Aye ma’am.” He readied his weapon and moved off, followed closely by Alenko, who still looked faintly ill.

“Shepard,” Nihlus approached her as the Normandy took off, the sound of the air and the engines nearly drowning him out, “I wanted to apologize.”

_God does he have to do this now?_ “Nihlus, now is not the time.” She snapped. She started to head down the hill after Jenkins and Alenko, but Nihlus snagged her elbow. His touch predictably set nearly her entire arm aflame. She wrenched her arm out of his grasp.

He sighed, “Look, I know you must hate me, but I just want to apologize for stirring up memories that shouldn’t have been touched and I wanted to tell you that I wouldn’t ask again. I know what it’s like to have someone drag up things that shouldn’t see the light of day. If you ever feel like telling me, then that is your choice, and I won’t force the situation again. That’s all.”

Shepard bit back a sharp retort. His apology was genuine, and it soothed something inside her she wasn’t even aware was aching. Her next breath felt freer than it had been in a while. “Thank you, Nihlus,” she offered a small smile, “now we have a job to do, or so I hear.”

He smiled back, his mandibles flaring, and she relaxed, satisfied that things were better between them. He chuffed, “Or so I hear. Come on Shepard, we’re lagging and soon we’ll be getting those _looks_ again.”

Shepard’s brows rose, “Oh you mean those looks we got after I stepped off of the elevator with a broken nose? _Those_ looks?”

“Glad you remember the ones.” Nihlus shifted his assault rifle into his hands.

Shepard snorted and settled into an easy, ground eating, lope that brought her quickly to the bottom of the hill where Jenkins and Alenko were waiting. She wasn’t prepared for what was waiting at the bottom of the hill with them. Alenko was vomiting and Jenkins looked like he was about to join him and Shepard couldn’t blame them.

“By all the Spirits,” Nihlus whispered, almost to himself, “what could have done this?”

Stretching off into the distance was a trail of human corpses all burnt, their limbs curled into their bodies or stretched in stiff, unnatural angles into the sky. The ground was scorched and peppered with the black streaks of plasma fire and bullet holes, but this was not the sight of a battle, this was just a massacre. Whatever had killed the people here had taken no time in breaking their defenses and routing them out of the hill’s defensible position. And judging by the tiny size of some of the bodies, these enemies were leaving no survivors.

Despite the horror etched onto Jenkins and Alenko’s faces, Shepard retained an unaffected air. “Let’s move, we have an artifact to recover and there’s nothing we can do for these people.” Her voice was cold. “Alenko, yak on your own time.”

She hoisted her assault rifle from its holster and led them through the silent field of bodies. She looked impassively at the corpses at her feet before scanning her surroundings, whatever had done this had done it quickly and left just as fast, meaning that there was a great chance that the beacon would be in the middle of a hot zone, surrounded by enemies. Her eyes skipped over the body of a child still holding a half melted toy soldier in Alliance colors. Her fingers tightened on her weapon. _I hope so, I could really use something to kill._

A movement in the trees made her halt and she quickly ordered her men to find cover. Shepard ducked behind a chunk of broken rock as some sort of machine floated over the rise, followed by three of its companions. She motioned for Jenkins and Alenko to take the two on the right and she lined up her own shots, trusting Nihlus to stay out of it. Two small bursts of gunfire later and the four machines exploded in a shower of fire and metal.

Seeing that all of the hostiles had been eliminated, Shepard motioned her men forward. They crept from their cover, weapons ready. Shepard nudged one of the machines as they reached even with their smoking wrecks.

“Looks like some sort of sentinel drone.” Sparks flew from where the toe of her boot nudged the broken remains. “Keep your eyes peeled, there will be more and we don’t know what kind of punch these R2-Douches are packing.”

The sound of gunfire in the distance made Shepard’s head snap up along with her rifle. She silently motioned to Jenkins and Alenko and they quickly converged on the sounds coming through the trees. Two sharp movements with her hand sent Jenkins and Alenko out on either side of her as they approached the fighting, but as they cleared the trees and got a good look at their enemies, even Shepard stumbled slightly. They were machines with one great glowing eye in their heads, they looked like Geth. _That’s impossible, the Geth disappeared 200 years ago_.

Shepard and her crew took out the machines in a hail of bullets, causing a soldier in pink and white Phoenix armor to whip around to face the tree line where they were hidden, her own weapon raised.

“Easy soldier!” Shepard called, stepping out of cover, her rifle pointed down, “Lieutenant Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy. Give me your name soldier.”

“Aye ma’am.” The soldier dropped the nose of her rifle down and snapped a short salute, “Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. Are you here to get us out of here ma’am?”

“I’m afraid not Gunnery Chief, we’re here for the Prothean beacon.”

Williams’ mouth thinned in displeasure and her eyes narrowed behind her visor.

Shepard ignored her anger, “What can you tell me about what happened here?”

Williams sighed, her shoulders slumping slightly, “We were here to make sure that the beacon would be undisturbed until you were here to take it, it was supposed to be a quiet operation, no one even knew the beacon was here. At least that’s what we thought.”

“Commander!”

Jenkins’ shout pulled her attention to where the man was standing. He gestured to the contraption in front of him, “Get a load of this, those sick bastards…”

It was a gigantic metal spike, on which a soldier had been impaled through his stomach. He hung from the spike, curved into a rictus of pain, even in death.

Williams spat on the ground, “These alien bastards have been taking the men, dead and alive, and sticking them on these spikes like some sick butterfly collection, God only knows why. They just came out of the sky and blew everything all to hell within the span of an hour. Anyone who was there when they landed is dead now, I barely escaped with my life, and I know that none of my men made it. Right now they’re just eliminating any resistance left in the colony.”

Shepard turned away from the impaled man and faced Williams, “You know where the beacon is?”

Williams nodded.

“Then you’re going to take us there.” Shepard gestured for Williams to join them.

She gripped her weapon tighter, “Ma’am what about the colonists and any survivors?”

“There’s nothing more we can do for them other than clear out as many of these bastards as we can, the beacon is priority. The Alliance has been notified and they’ll send backup.” She glanced pointedly over her shoulder at Nihlus, sharing a meaningful look with him, “But I find it more than coincidental that we discover an ancient piece of Prothean technology and then a gigantic, mysterious, warship swoops down on an inconsequential outpost and proceeds to destroy everything. Something tells me that the best thing for the people still alive here, is to get that beacon off of Eden Prime.”


	5. Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Shepard isn't as good a shot as she thinks she is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again lovelies! Keep reading for more Shepardy goodness! Though I must warn you, here be violence, bloodshed, icky things, and naughty words. Enjoy!

* * *

Shepard had noticed the numerous times Ashley Williams looked over her shoulder to observe their party, mainly the non-human member floating along behind them like some sort of broody raptor. She sighed inwardly, great, another xenophobe.

“Williams, exactly where is the beacon?” Shepard caught up to their erstwhile guide.

Williams thrust her chin out at the narrow valley in front of them, “It’s just through the pass there.” Her voice lowered, “Ma’am, the beacon is on an Alliance colony and this is Alliance jurisdiction only, why is a turian here?”

“I’m afraid that’s classified.” Shepard narrowed her eyes at Williams’ look of distaste and motioned for the group to halt, she turned to Jenkins and Alenko, “The beacon’s last known location is through this pass.”

Jenkins grimaced at the entrance, “This is ambush city.”

“Exactly,” she nodded, “so keep your weapons ready. Alenko, Jenkins, I want your eyes up and behind us, Williams and I will take point. From this point on we’re full silence.”

Shepard and Williams crept forward and Shepard had to shake off the cold chill of unease as the walls of the pass rose above her. The narrowness of the valley wasn’t the only thing that made her uncomfortable; there were spikes like the ones they’d seen earlier placed liberally along the path, each one stabbed through the abdomen of some unfortunate soul. She ached to get the victims down from their gruesome displays, but she quashed the urge and refused to spare them a second glance.

A sharp metallic clang echoed down the corridor. Shepard halted, her weapon raised, but silence resumed. The uneasy feeling returned and she looked at Jenkins and Alenko, Jenkins shrugged, giving an all-clear signal. She waited another second, her senses straining to hear the slightest sound, but she heard nothing. She started forward again.

Suddenly there was a horrible scream from behind them, a dry, full-throated roar that set her teeth on edge, and she whipped around. The husk-like bodies of the poor sods on the spikes were running after them, blue light shining through their gaping mouths and eye sockets. Wires and mummified viscera hung from the gaping holes in their abdomen and they stumbled after them blindly. But despite the facts that one, they were dead, and two, they had all the flexibility of jerky, the abominations were fast.

“Son of an Elcor whore!” Jenkins yelled, fear and shock making his voice break. The rat-tat-tat sound of their weapons echoed down the valley.

The creatures jerked as the bullets impacted, but they wouldn’t go down. Shepard cursed, back pedaling away as the mummies got closer, she was not equipped for close-quarters combat, not with a sniper rifle anyway. She tossed the rifle, mumbling a quiet apology, and triggered her omnitool. The blade on her omnitool and the one on the omnicuff on her other wrist activated with a hiss and she spun, slicing the husk attacking her in half.

Nihlus dodged the toppling body, fire blazing from his assault rifle, “I have got to get some of those omni-blades.”

“Yeah,” Shepard grunted, cutting down another husk, “I can point you in the right direction. There’s this one shop on the Citadel-

A blue shield suddenly sprang up around them and six husks they hadn’t seen, bounced violently off of it. Alenko dropped the shield and pushed between them, “No offense Commander, but shop on your own time,” he tossed in a cheeky grin, “we have things to kill.”

“Well, well, well,” Shepard laughed, stabbing one blade through the skull of a husk that was still dragging itself after her, “you’re certainly looking better than you were when we started this thing.”

He shrugged, “Adrenaline will do that.”

“Grenade!”

Alenko quickly threw up another biotic barrier as the last of the husks were blown to hell. Shepard turned angrily towards Jenkins, “How about a little warning next time?”

Jenkins laughed, “I hated to break up the powwow.”

“Yeah, well… damn I thought I had something for that. Shut up.” She picked up her rifle, “Let’s keep moving. Expect more of these things though.”

Williams nudged one with the toe of her boot, flinching when it gave off sparks. “God, what did they do to these people?”

“It looks like those spikes drained them of moisture and turned them into cybernetic shock troops.” Nihlus knelt next to one of the corpses, pulling out a chunk of wiring, “but why dry them, and why waste material converting them?”

Shepard lifted her weapon, “Like you said, shock troops, psychological warfare, these things were human until recently.”

“We have to move on,” She gestured with her rifle, “Williams, Alenko, you have point.”

She kept her head on a swivel as they moved through the pass. The walls on either side of her made her incredibly uncomfortable and having Nihlus at her back didn’t make her feel any better. Regardless of their heart to heart, he still made her feel like running away, and that was not a good place to be in the middle of a highly dangerous mission with intergalactic impacts.

Despite her mounting discomfort, they made it through the pass without incident… And then they reached the dig site.

“Cover!”

They scattered as, what could only be described as a laser cannon, set fire to the ground around them with a terrible red light. The smell of ozone and scorched earth billowed around them making her eyes sting and water. Shepard pressed herself into a crevice at the mouth of the pass and snarled. _The bastards were waiting for us!_

Her eyes widened and fear speared her as Jenkins darted forwards instead of staying behind the boulder he’d found. “Jenkins! Get down!”

He ignored her and continued running, but as he brought his weapon up, the laser speared him through the chest. He toppled forward, smoke rising from the scorched hole through his back.

“Shit!” She squeezed her eyes shut and her fingers tightened painfully on her rifle. It was a crapshoot to hope he was alive, but she had to get him out of there. She inched out of the crevice and peeked around the corner, but she only got a split second to scout enemy locations before a searing beam of light whipped past her face. She ducked back, but her face felt burnt, like she’d been in the sun without a UV shield for too long. She sucked in a breath, touching her seared skin tenderly, “God dammit Leroy.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Nihlus hissed at her from across the pass, “You’re going to get yourself killed. Jenkins is dead, leave him.”

Shepard ignored him. “Alenko, can you cast a singularity?”

Alenko, who was crouched behind the same boulder Jenkins had abandoned, nodded, “I can cast one up to 100 yards.”

“Damn,” Shepard sighed, “the nearest one is 90 yards away at least. How wide are they?”

“3 meters at most.”

Ok, so that left her a very small opportunity. She would have to move fast, faster than she’d first thought. Unless… “Williams, what kind of payload do you have for that grenade launcher?”

Ashley was in a niche just a few feet in front of her, if she crept close to the edge of her own shield, she could see the toe of Williams’ boot. She could hear Williams shift against the stone. “Ma’am I have two frags and a riot suppresser.”

The wheels in her brain spun faster. “Alright, when I tell you, fire the riot suppressor. You’ll have to move fast, aim for your five o’clock. Alenko I need a distraction, how strong are your barriers?”

Alenko winced as the geth opened fire again and the laser ate away at his cover one chunk at a time. “Well they won’t stand up to this if that’s what you’re asking.”

Shepard was silent, counting the seconds between each time the laser was fired.

“Uh, Commander?” Alenko was almost flat behind what little was left of his boulder, “A decision would be really nice right about now.”

“Right,” Shepard nodded, “Alenko, when I tell you, throw out a shield as far away from William’s position as you can. Williams, the second that the laser targets the shield, I want you to fire that riot bomb. I’ll grab Jenkins. Nihlus, while I’m grabbing Jenkins, show me what kind of a shot a Spectre is.”

Nihlus chuckled, “Better than you.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” Shepard raised her brow at Nihlus’ cocky grin, “Take out as many as you can, but get that bastard with the fucking cannon first.”

The laser fired past her face.

“Now!”

She darted out into the open, running low and straight at Jenkins’ still form. She saw the glitter of blue out of the corner of her eye where Alenko tossed out a biotic wall. Williams’ grenade launcher gave a quiet cough as she fired and the loud bang of the riot suppresser as it exploded into hundreds of tiny marbles that rained down on the geth. They tinged off of the machines.

Shepard had her rifle slung on her back and she grabbed Jenkins under his shoulders and dragged him back to the boulder he’d left. Nihlus’ rounds rocketed over her head, passing so closely that she could feel them zing by. She didn’t flinch, but she did shoot him a nasty look as she dragged Jenkins to cover. Shepard pulled Jenkins behind the boulder and propped him up against the wall.

Her heart sank when she looked at him. He was covered in blood, the front of his chest was a smoking hole, and sparks flew from the shield implants on his armor. Whatever had hit him was so strong that it fried out his shields like they hadn’t existed. She placed two fingers on his neck to check for a pulse, but she’d seen enough dead bodies to know that this was just another one. Jenkins was gone. Shepard sighed and closed his eyes with gore covered fingers, leaving sticky red smears on his eyelids. She was getting pretty damn tired of losing the people under her command.

“Nihlus!” She called over her shoulder as she stripped Jenkins’ body of his dog tags and weapons, “Please tell me you’ve taken out that cannon.”

Another gunshot echoed through the canyon. “Of course,” Nihlus looked affronted, “easy as pie.”

She shook her head, “Again with the human idioms. Do you even know what pie is?”

He shrugged. Shepard looked over the boulder, ducking back down as the rest of the geth fired at her, chipping away pieces of the rock. “Williams! Frag ‘em!”

“With pleasure Commander.”

She knew that the geth wouldn’t fall for the barrier trick twice, so she spun out from behind the boulder and dashed back to the niche where she’d been before, drawing their fire. She grunted in pain as their rounds punched through her shields, catching her in the shoulder and leg, but smiled grimly when Williams’ grenade exploded in their midst. She hit the medigel when she slid back up against the wall and sighed in relief as the pain of her wounds eased.

Shepard pulled her rifle from her back and stood, turning out from behind the wall, and took out two more of the machines before she ducked again. She went to peek around the corner again, but the geth peppered her spot as soon as she showed herself. _Shit, their tracking is too good and they have me pegged as the most important target._ She grinned. “Hey Nihlus, looks like I’m beating the Spectre! Again!”

“What is it you humans say? Bullshit? Yeah, that’s it. Bullshit Shepard, I call bullshit.” Nihlus glowered at her, his subvocals laced with offense.

She snorted, but she was shuffling through her bag of poisons, an idea forming. When she found what she was looking for, she smirked. “Williams, think you can lob this over there with that grenade launcher?” She tossed a fist-sized black cartridge to Williams, who deftly caught it.

“Ma’am, what _is_ this?” Williams turned the object over and juggled it slightly to test its weight.

“Just a little something I’ve been working on. It coats the sensors of most synthetics, I developed it to mess with security cameras, drones, weaponized bots, you name it. Makes it really hard for them to target you because it glops up their targeting systems. In theory at least.” Shepard ducked back as chips of stone flew past her face. The geth _really_ wanted her dead first.

Alenko grimaced as he opened fire and he glowered at her as he rolled back behind what was left of his boulder. “I really wish you had mentioned this sooner Commander.”

Shepard targeted another geth, taking it out before they opened fire. “It’s a prototype, never been tested. And it’s dangerous. It’s not exactly a packet of itch powder, this stuff can do some serious damage and beta testing it in a combat situation is not exactly how I want to do this.” She glanced back at Williams, who was still bouncing the cartridge on her palm. “Williams, don’t play with that, you’ll go blind.”

Williams smirked, “Yeah Commander, I can get this where you want it, granting that it doesn’t blow up in my face and kill me first.”

She loaded it and whipped around the corner, firing it into the largest group of the geth. The cartridge burst in a violent explosion that coated everything within 30 meters with a thick, neon blue slime. “Oh that’s just gross.”

Shepard stuck one hand out into the open, satisfied when it wasn’t immediately shot off. “It works!” She crowed in victory and stepped out, holstering her rifle and pulling out her pistol. Taking out the rest of the geth was easier now that most of them couldn’t see anything, and they made short work of them.

Alenko and Ashley joined her as she stepped around the slime, but Nihlus stopped to examine it. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” Shepard said over her shoulder, “you’ll go into toxic shock in less than three minutes.”

“ _Fraashka_ Shepard, I can’t tell if you’re insane or brilliant, but this smells highly illegal.” Nihlus quickly stepped away from the slime. “This is going into my report you know; Commander Shepard, resourceful, but extremely reckless. If you had this, why wait until after your stupid stunt to recover Jenkins to use it?”

She shook her head, “I hesitated to use it because it could’ve potentially killed us all, but if we’d stayed pinned down like that for much longer, we would’ve died anyway.” She shrugged and continued walking, she could see what looked like flood lights up ahead.

Williams spoke up, “Looks like we’re approaching the dig site.”

“Alenko I want you ready to throw up a barrier, we don’t know what’s behind that corner and I don’t want to walk into another ambush unprepared.” Shepard frowned to herself. She should’ve used the prototype before Jenkins had run out into the open, if she had, he might still be alive now.

Kaiden came up close to her elbow and spoke softly, “Commander, you had no way of knowing if it would work and you said it yourself, it could’ve killed _everyone_. Jenkins was dead the second he broke cover, it wasn’t your fault.” She gave him a small, grateful smile; he always seemed to know exactly what was on her mind. He was right, she had more important things to focus on, like keeping the rest of them alive, and recovering the beacon.

She and Williams approached the corner carefully, Alenko close behind. With a nod to Alenko, Shepard ducked around the corner, her weapon ready, but no one was there. The clearing was suspiciously empty. As congested with enemies as the ambush site had been, she’d expected the dig site to be crawling with geth and husks, but it was empty.

Nihlus moved past them with a frustrated grumble, “There’s nothing here.”

“Disappointed you don’t have anyone to blow up, turian?” Williams asked snarkily.

“That was uncalled for soldier,” Shepard snapped, “he was talking about the beacon. It’s gone.”

“Commander, look at this.” Alenko crouched by a geth corpse she hadn’t noticed when they came into the site. It looked as if it had been shot from behind at close range. Shepard frowned at it and looked around, there were more bodies like it scattered across the clearing.

Nihlus flipped one over with the toe of his boot, “It looks as if someone came through here before us.” He looked over at Williams, “Could your unit have done this?” She shook her head, “None of my people made it out of the initial attack. We had been doing a perimeter sweep when they hit us.”

Shepard shrugged, “Someone must’ve made it or we’re dealing with an unknown entity. More importantly, where is the beacon?”

Williams frowned, “It’s been moved, but it didn’t come past me, so they must’ve taken it through the camp. It’s just ahead up the ramp. If anyone’s still alive, they’ll know more.”

Shepard nodded and pulled out her sniper rifle, something told her she was going to need it very soon. She gritted her teeth against the ominous feeling in her gut and led them up the ramp, as they neared the top, she could see smoke. Williams came up behind her with a dismayed moan, “It looks like they’ve hit the camp hard.”

The carnage that waited for them at the top of the hill made Williams’ prediction the understatement of the year. The twisted bodies of soldiers and civilians both littered the ground. Several mobile building units were knocked over as if some giant hand had smacked them out of the way and quite a few of them were on fire. Spikes, complete with impaled husks, filled the campsite. “I’m going to destroy the spikes before the husks can get off of them.” Shepard hissed, “If I don’t get them all, throw whatever grenades you have left.”

She pulled two frags from her belt and pulled the pins and lobbed them at a collection of spikes that had started to retract. They blew up in a shower of metal and sparked a chain reaction, causing those spikes closest to them to explode as well. Williams took out the husks that had managed to get off of their spikes before they blew up with a few, well placed rounds.

Shepard looked around with a frown, “I don’t think we’re going to find any help here. Williams, what’s through there?” She gestured to where the path through the camp curved down a hill and out of sight.

“That leads to the docks and the warehouses. There’s also a tram station that takes goods back and forth from the port.” Williams glanced at a nearby corpse with a sick look, “If the beacon is anywhere, it’ll be there.”

This was becoming something of a wild goose chase. Shepard continued forward, ignoring the fires, and the bodies, and the smell of burning refuse. What was on this beacon that made it so important to destroy an entire, non-militarized, human colony? What’s more, who leaked the information that the beacon was here in the first place? No one but the Council and the Alliance brass even knew of the beacon’s existence, and she found it hard to believe that the Alliance would have any connection to the Geth, they’d been holed up behind the Perseus Veil long before humans had even shown up on the intergalactic map.

The dock warehouses were built into a cliff face at the bottom of the hill and as they approached, Shepard realized that they weren’t alone. She halted. “Hold up, that place is crawling with geth. Nihlus,” she grinned over at the turian and hoisted up her rifle, “you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Way ahead of you Commander.” He pointed to what looked like the beginnings of a paved road leading down the hill, “This is a perfect vantage point. Show me what you can do.”

Shepard knelt and lined up a shot through her scope. The geth went down like a puppet with its strings cut. Her rifle’s cough was quiet, but deadly and every time it sounded another geth collapsed. Nihlus made a small sound of appreciation, his subvocals humming with approval and Alenko whistled admiringly. Shepard grinned and a savage thrill zinged through her. She’d come to love the feeling of a clean shot and the sight of her target falling to her skill. It meant there was one less bastard down there for her ground team to tangle with, and there was no doubt in her mind that this would become a close quarters fight. The geth were scrambling over themselves to find where the deadly rain was coming from. Her rifle bucked slightly and another geth went down in sparks.

She moved to target a figure standing by the warehouses above the platoon of geth, gesturing, and frowned. That was no geth. That was a turian! Was he the one who had killed the geth back at the dig site? No, he wasn’t attacking the geth below him… her eyes widened when she realized what he was doing, he was commanding them.

“Commander? Is something wrong?” Alenko’s voice startled her.

Shepard looked up at Nihlus, doubt filling her. How trust worthy was the Spectre anyway? He was here on behalf of the Council and yet, here’s another turian who, by all appearances, is leading the raid by the Geth of a human colony. “There’s a turian down there. It looks like he’s in charge of the geth.”

Nihlus’s head whipped around and he stared at her, eyes wide, “A turian? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” she looked back through her scope, “tall son-of-a-bitch, he’s wearing some kind of black hood over his fringe. Damn, his equipment is definitely not subpar either. His facial markings are strange, it looks as if they’ve been scratched off, but there are still streaks of black paint on his mandibles.”

“Black? Are you sure?” Nihlus was insistent, a thrum of dread rumbling through his voice. Shepard looked up, “Yes, black, sound like someone you know?” He shook his head in disbelief, “The only turian family left with black _familia notas_ are the Arterius’s. That must be Saren, but that can’t be right. He’s a Spectre, like me.”

Shepard scowled through her scope, “What is another Spectre doing here? Unless he has a spectacular reason to enlist the Geth in a full-out massacre against a harmless human colony, I’m going to shoot him.”

“Wait!” Nihlus growled angrily, the slight whine of confusion in his subvocals belied his gruff tone, “Let me talk to him. He was my mentor and I at least owe him a chance to explain himself.

“You may owe him,” Shepard snapped furiously, “but _I_ owe him nothing and he just destroyed a human settlement. Spectre or not, this was an act of terrorism, if not war.”

Nihlus held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Look Commander, just let me get to the bottom of this, please. Saren is a good turian, an irreprehensible soldier, and the best agent in the Spectres.”

Shepard snarled angrily, considering just shooting the turian outright, but the pleading look in Nihlus’ eyes won her over, despite her better judgment. “Fine,” she sighed, “but I’m keeping a bead on him and Williams and Alenko are going with you.”

“Thank you Commander.” Nihlus glanced at the two humans next to him, “Just stay close behind me and stay quiet.”

Williams turned on her angrily, “Ma’am you can’t be serious. This alien just slaughtered half of a colony! He killed _children_!” Alenko nodded, stepping up next to her, “I agree with Ashley on this, Commander, he’s clearly gone rogue.”

“I know, but he’s a Spectre, if I just shoot him, it’s possible that the Council will take action against us and then we’ll be up shit creek without a paddle.” Shepard ground her teeth together in frustration, “We need to know without a doubt that he’s gone rogue.” She knew exactly what kind of games these politicians liked to play. The storm of accusations that had erupted after she’d survived the thresher maw attack on Akuze had almost destroyed her career; it was only the quick thinking of Admiral Hackett and her good friend, and journalist, Emily Wong that had spun her story into that of a hero rather than an incompetent leader. It would take nothing at all to set humanity back years in the diplomatic arena if she shot Saren straight out, regardless of how much her brain was screaming at her to.

Her eyes flicked up to Williams, “Go. I’ve got a bullet with his name on it if he so much as breathes funny and I expect you to as well. Alenko, Williams, be paranoid down there, stay on the defensive.” She met Nihlus’ gaze with a hard stare, “I don’t care how much history you two have together, if you jeopardize the lives of my people, I will shoot you too.”

He nodded, “Understood Commander.”

Shepard watched them head down the hill with mounting discomfort. She had a sickeningly bad feeling about this and she was sure that heaps, fucking _heaps_ , of regret were waiting for her because there was no way that this was going to play out well. She focused back in on Saren, who was watching Nihlus and the others come towards him. He said something to a geth that was standing near him and the machine nodded then walked away from the warehouses towards what looked like the tram station Williams had mentioned. The tram took off, carrying the geth away with it.

Both Ashley and Kaiden had their weapons up as they approached the other turian, but Nihlus held his assault rifle loosely in front of him. Saren gestured to the other geth as her group approached and they moved aside to let the three pass. Shepard’s finger convulsed on the trigger as the geth closed in behind them. Williams must have felt the same way because she turned to keep the geth in her sights.

Saren began to talk and Shepard suddenly wished she had super hearing. It was like watching a silent movie, and the stiffness of turian mouth plates made lip reading impossible. The geth moved in behind them and Alenko turned to face them. Nihlus stepped up to speak with Saren. Shepard put Saren’s head in her cross hairs, her tension mounting. _This feels like shit Shepard, get your people out of there…_

Saren said something and Nihlus turned away from him and looked up at the warehouse. Saren moved. Alenko and Williams were still watching the geth, but Shepard saw. She saw his pistol rise. She saw him preparing to shoot Nihlus in the back. Rage more potent than any she’d ever felt, washed through her and she blasted a hole straight between the bastard’s eyes.

All hell broke loose as Saren stumbled back. _FUCK_. Saren had stumbled, but he didn’t go down. He’d turned his head at the last second and the bullet took out his left eye instead of his brain. Rivers of blue blood washed over his hand where he held it to his face. He was shouting something and he turned towards the tram.

Shepard screamed in frustration, wanting to take another shot at him as he ran, but if she didn’t start shooting the geth, they were going to overrun Alenko and Williams. Nihlus was just standing there looking shocked. She fired a shot off by his foot to get his attention before turning her fully to the geth. They fell one by one to her brutal efficiency or were thrown against the cliff face with crushing force by Alenko’s biotics, but by the time the last of the geth were destroyed, Saren was long gone, only splashes of blue were left showing where he’d been.


	6. And then...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard discovers that she actually despises 1990's super villains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So just want to say that I don't own any of these characters (props to bioware), nor do I own any of the things that Shepard often quotes or alludes to (she's an old pop culture fanatic). Now that, that's out of the way, please enjoy! PSA for violence and language

* * *

Shepard was pissed. No, she was _beyond_ pissed. When she reached the warehouses, Nihlus was still standing there, looking slightly lost and Alenko was patching up Williams where she’d been shot in the side. Shepard paused by them on her march towards the Spectre.

“Are you fit Williams?” Shepard’s tone was gruffer than she’d intended, but this fury was not to be contained.

Ashley nodded and flashed a thumbs up. “Never better Commander. The flashlight head just nicked me.”

Shepard nodded and continued her forced march up to Nihlus. He finally seemed to see her and his mandibles fluttered helplessly, his mouth opening and closing as if he was at a loss for words. He cleared his throat roughly, “I- I thought-

With one giant swing, all of the force of her anger behind it, Shepard punched him straight in the face. Her fist connected with the ridge of his nose with a crunch. He stumbled back, sputtering through the blood that was now spurting from his face.

“Holy shit…” Alenko coughed to cover Ashley’s smothered laugh.

Nihlus stared at her in shock. “What the fuck did I tell you about endangering my people?” Shepard stood there, all five feet four inches of her bristling. “You just walked in there like Nelly Naivety into a straight cluster fuck that _I_ had to save you from! That asshole was about to shoot you in the back of your stupid fucking head because you _turned your back_ on him. How thick can you _possibly_ be?”

The crushing look of loss that had been in Nihlus’ eyes disappeared, replaced by rapidly growing resentment. _Good, I want him furious_. She needed him functioning, not dwelling over what had to be a horrible betrayal and she hadn’t yet found something that motivated someone more than anger.

The Spectre stepped forward, every hard angle of his body screaming fury, but Shepard simply pushed past him. “Come on,” she sneered over her shoulder, “we have a beacon to find and a traitor to kill. You can rake me over the coals later, _sir_.”

Alenko and Williams hurried past Nihlus, neither of them looking up at him. Alenko quickly came up to Shepard’s side. She didn’t look at him, but smirked, “Don’t worry Kaiden, I know what I’m doing. He was starting to crack.”

He gave an apprehensive chuckle, “And when this is over he’s going to crack _you_.”

Shepard shrugged, “He can try, but I have it on good authority that I’m not going to die yet.”

“Who’s authority,” Alenko shook his head, “a magic eight ball?”

“Nope. It’ll be just like the old gypsy woman said.” Shepard looked over her shoulder, “Come on, we have to reach the beacon before Saren takes off with it.”

“Wait! A _gypsy_ foretold your future?” Alenko struggled to keep pace with Shepard as she began to jog towards the tram.

She looked askance at him, “Alenko, people can’t see the future. Don’t believe everything you read on the extra net.”

“But you just-

“Nihlus,” She barked, “what kind of resistance can we expect from your one-eyed pal?”

Nihlus looked at her coldly, still wiping streaks of blue from his mouth. “He’s a master of close-combat,” he growled, “so don’t get within reach. He’s also a demolitions expert; I wouldn’t be surprised if he has the docks rigged with enough explosives to wipe out this entire colony.”

Shepard stepped onto the platform with the rest of her team close behind and hit the button that would start the tram moving. She shifted to keep her balance as it took off faster than she’d expected. The wound in her leg twinged. She roughly shoved the pain out of her mind, “Everyone, weapons ready, we don’t know what we’re walking into here, but I’m going to guess that it isn’t pretty.”

They were silent as the tram whisked them away. Shepard could _feel_ Nihlus’ gaze boring holes in her neck and the minute long journey felt like it took hours. As the tram hissed to a stop at the next platform, Shepard groaned. Saren had left her a surprise, an enormous bomb, complete with a digital timer and a cheesy ticking sound straight out of old human movies.

Alenko piped up, “Jeezy-petes Batman, he’s going to blow up Gotham!”

“Thank you Robin. Shut up.” Shepard sighed. “This isn’t enough to destroy the colony, the docks yes, but not the colony. There has to be more.”

Shepard immediately went to the bomb, but the geth waiting for them had other plans. She ducked and everyone leapt from the tram to scramble for cover. “Shit! If they hit the bomb we’re all screwed.” Shepard looked up, straight into the eyes of one very angry turian.

“I’ll take care of them. Can you disable the bomb?” Nihlus was in her face. She nodded mutely and tried not to breathe too deeply as his presence surrounded her. “Good,” his subvocals rumbled ominously beneath his coolly distant voice, “I’ll be back.”

“Said the Terminator to John Connors, before he eventually kills him.” Shepard muttered, exhaling a shaky breath. She scrambled to the bomb, ducking as bullets peppered the ground around her, one large explosion later and the bullets stopped targeting her.

“Jesus,” Williams whispered, “you know, suddenly I’m really glad he’s on our side.” Alenko nodded mutely and they both stood there, watching the one-Spectre wrecking ball trash their enemies. Shepard rolled her eyes, scanning the bomb with her omni-tool, “Don’t just stand there, go give him some back up or he’ll do something stupid and get stuck out there with his pants down.”

Williams and Alenko then both charged up the ramp after Nihlus, leaving Shepard alone with the bomb. “Oookaaay,” she muttered to herself, “where is your off switch you bastard?” Her omni-tool beeped. “Shit, so you’re remote activated, getting a little more tech-savvy than your average 1990’s world dominating super villain huh Saren?”  Her omni-tool beeped again and Shepard wanted to scream at the readings she was getting, “There’s fucking three more? And fantastic, they’re all individually activated by different signals.”

She finally got the one in front of her deactivated and the signals that she’d picked up that connected the bombs together gave her the locations of the other three. “Heads up guys!” Shepard bolted up the ramp and past Williams and Alenko, “There’s three more! Keep them off of me while I take care of Armageddon!”

They cursed as she skidded by and targeted the geth nearest her. Shepard glanced down at her omni-tool to check the direction the nearest signal was coming from, but she needn’t have bothered, she could clearly see the bomb from across the bridge, and it was surrounded by geth. A feral smile spread across her face and she activated her omni-blades. _Bring it on baby!_

Shepard ignored Williams and Alenko’s shouts as she dashed across the bridge. The geth rushed to meet her, but she had no time to deal with them all and simply spun through them like a dervish, ducking and dodging as she sliced through their metal limbs with the atom thick blades on her wrists. Her omni-blades sheared through them as if they were made of paper and she left them floundering in her wake, easy for Williams and Alenko to finish off.

A geth, larger than the rest, stood at the end of the bridge and leveled an enormous weapon in her direction. Her eyes widened as the barrel glowed red, preparing to fire. She recognized it as a laser cannon like the one that had killed Jenkins. “Cover! Cover! Cover!” She shouted, hoping that Ashley and Kaiden would hear and get out of the way. As for herself, she put on a burst of speed and threw herself down just as the weapon fired, sliding forward on her knees. The force of her momentum propelled her straight underneath the geth and she cut through its legs. She spun back up onto her feet as the machine toppled forward and was destroyed underneath a hail of bullets.

Shepard found the next bomb and skidded to a stop. She only had to do a cursory scan with her omni-tool to crack the signal and deactivate the bomb and then it was, once again, off to the races to find the next one. There were no geth left to hinder progress, Nihlus had made sure of that, but she did have to watch her step so that she didn’t break a leg tripping over one of the many pieces of machine scattered across the docks. It looked as if he’d just swept through, dismembering geth left and right. She shuddered to herself at the prospect of all of that fury being directed at her. While she was confident in her own abilities, and rightly so, she knew she would be hard pressed to hold her own against the Spectre if he was truly intent on making her hurt.

The next bomb was slightly harder to deactivate. Trying to keep your head from being blown to bits made the process just that much more difficult, luckily for her, an angry turian charged past her and drew all the fire away. After that, it was easier to get to the next target, seeing as how the geth that Nihlus and the others hadn’t yet destroyed were too busy shooting at them to deal with the smallish human traipsing by.

Shepard breathed a sigh of relief when she deactivated the last bomb and the timer stopped on the thirty seconds mark. She’d always hated timed tests, especially the ones that could blow up planets when they hit zero.

A concussive blast dropped them all to their knees, the last of the geth as well, and the same horrible noise Shepard had heard on the video from Williams’ unit throbbed through the air. She clapped her hands to her ears, trying to muffle the sound, and looked up with watering eyes. The massive ship that had attacked Eden Prime was rapidly leaving its atmosphere, taking Saren away with it.

Shepard struggled to her feet as the noise faded. Her hands came away bloody from her ears. Unfortunately, she had no more medigel packs, she’d used the last of them on her shoulder and leg. _Awesome. So for the time being I’m deaf. Fan-fucking-tastic. I really have to learn to start carrying more of those damn things._ Williams and Alenko drew up next to her, each of them with streaks of blood dripping from their ears too.

Williams pulled out a few medigel packs and passed them around. Shepard stabbed one into her neck below her ear and sighed in relief as her ear drums healed with a faint “pop” and she could hear again. Shepard rubbed the injection site and looked around. Where was Nihlus?

The bad feeling in her gut grew stronger when she didn’t see him. She noticed stairs to their left and ran towards them. She didn’t bother with them, instead vaulting over the railing onto a docking port, straight into a mass of husks that were attacking something in their midst. She wasted no time in triggering her omni-blades and slicing through the lot of them. Nihlus lay there, beaten senseless by the cybernetic zombies. Alenko was the first to make it down the stairs and he cursed when he saw Nihlus’ prone form.

“Is he…?” He approached cautiously, scanning for more enemies.

Shepard shook her head, checking his pulse, “No, he’s not dead, but he’s had the ever-living shit beaten out of him. The moron.” She looked up at Williams, “I don’t suppose you have any dextro friendly medigel in your first-aid kit?”

Williams scowled, “I do. We’re required to carry at least one now. I always thought it was useless.”

“It’s not,” Shepard snapped, “and it’s a damn good thing you have one. See to Nihlus and get him back on his feet.”

“Commander, the beacon’s over here,” Alenko was walking towards a tall structure that pulsed faintly with green light, “it looks like it’s been activated.” He cocked his head, “I’ve never seen anything like it! It must be thousands of years old, but it still works, amazing…”

Shepard stood, “Alenko, be careful, we don’t know what it does.”

“It’s making some sort of sound… I think they’re words, but I can’t _hear_ -

Suddenly he was lifted from the platform, as if caught in some invisible grip, and pulled towards the beacon.

“Alenko!” Shepard raced forward and grabbed hold of Kaiden, wrenching him away from the Prothean artifact, but as she threw him out of the way, her boot slipped and she was caught up in the invisible force instead. She was lifted higher and a green glow surrounded her.

The sound that Alenko had muttered about slammed down on her, into her, filling her head with a red static. Flashes of horror were seared into her brain. Giant machines scorching planets into blackened ruins, twisted creatures swarming over the walls of cities, the glow of synthetic eyes as civilizations were evaporated in brilliant swathes of fire. The bloody images swirled through her, an insistent scream sweeping every mental barrier she possessed aside until all she could see was death. It seeped into her soul and her own monsters rose to meet it with ravenous howls. _NO!_ She fought against the sounds of battle and the screams of soldiers and the roars of nameless beasts. Blackness rose up to swallow her until she could see no more and she gratefully fell unconscious.


	7. Going to Need a Drink...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a very long day for Shepard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: graphic violence, mentions of rape, drug use, vivid nightmares  
> Yeah, part of this chapter is going to be a heavy one, there's bound to be a few of those

* * *

The first thing Shepard noticed was the nasty taste in her mouth. The second thing she noticed was the chair someone had repeatedly smashed into her frontal lobe. She groaned, feeling like she’d just survived the bender of a lifetime, and slowly sat up.

                “Shepard, glad to see that you aren’t dead.” The cool British voice of Dr. Chakwas greeted her unfortunate conscious state.

                Shepard blinked blearily, running her tongue across her teeth. “Is that your professional opinion Chakwas? Because I think you might be wrong about that. I certainly don’t feel alive.”

                “If you felt dead, you wouldn’t have to worry about feeling anything,” Karin Chakwas placed a cool hand against Shepard’s forehead, “now how _are_ you feeling?”

                Shepard chuckled ruefully, “Like a fifth of ryncol and an ass-kicking. How long have I been out?”

                Dr. Chakwas crossed her arms, “About fifteen hours. I’m going to let Anderson know you’re awake. He wants to know what happened down there.”

                “Wait,” Shepard reached out to stop her as she turned, “Nihlus, how is he?”

                Karin smirked, “He was awake when they brought him aboard, shouting the entire time that we needed to be focusing on you instead. I got him on his feet and out of here pretty quickly and he’s been pacing in the mess hall like a caged tiger for the past six hours.” She shook her head and turned away with a sigh, “He’ll be in here soon enough, disrupting my quiet med bay, _again_.”

                Shepard winced as another spear sliced into her grey matter and put her head in her hands. Her gut clenched and her hands started to shake. Whatever had been on that beacon was still flashing through her brain, and none of it was pleasant. Now all she could think about now was the drug that Dr. Chakwas kept hidden in her safe. Her muscles twitched eagerly and Shepard couldn’t help the wash of guilt and shame she felt, but without another dose of xeno6, she was going to go into withdrawal, and that would kill her. If the memories swirling through her abused neurons didn’t drive her insane first.

                The med bay door hissed opened and Anderson walked in, followed by Nihlus, Alenko, and Williams. Nihlus immediately propped himself against the wall, making it clear, despite Dr. Chakwas’ pointed look, that he wasn’t going anywhere. Chakwas instead frowned at the two humans, “This isn’t the rec room. Alenko, Williams, you two can just wait outside. The Commander is fine.”

                Kaiden scowled and opened his mouth to protest, but Anderson cut him off, “You can check on Shepard later Alenko.” Alenko frowned, but left with Williams in tow. Anderson scrutinized Shepard with eyes that saw too much. Shepard squirmed, feeling ashamed of herself all over again, but her curiosity quickly overcame her guilt.

                “Sir, what happened down there?” She put a hand to her head, “I don’t remember anything after the beacon got me.”

                Anderson crossed his arms, “Alenko and Williams both say they saw you caught in some sort of force field and that you just hung there until the beacon blew up and threw you across the dock.” He turned and began to pace, “So our mission was a critical failure. Saren escaped and the beacon we were supposed to recover has been destroyed. The Council is going to crucify you and I’m afraid that your bid for Spectre candidacy is going to be denied. But I have to know,” he stopped pacing and looked closely at her, “what do you remember about what the beacon did to you?”

                Shepard shook her head, unsure of how to explain the scrambled flashes of violence she’d received from the beacon, “I- I don’t really know. It was some kind of vision.” Anderson frowned, “A vision?”

                She swallowed and nodded, “I saw some sort of machine destroying cities and hundreds of aliens I’ve never seen before being slaughtered by these strange synthetic creatures. It looked like a mass extinction, but I can’t make much sense of it,” she winced again and pressed the heel of her hand against the throbbing in her left eye, “it’s too scrambled to understand.”

                Anderson sighed, “At least we have enough evidence to prove that Saren was behind the Geth attack on Eden Prime. They’ll revoke his Spectre status for this.”

                Nihlus finally spoke up, pushing off from the wall, “Actually, we only have Shepard’s word that Saren was about to kill me.” He looked at Shepard apologetically, “It’s not that I don’t believe you, but the only one who saw Saren about to pull the trigger was you, and with your… history… that’s all the Council will need to discredit you.”

                Anderson cursed quietly, but Nihlus continued, “I will stand by your word, Shepard, I know that you wouldn’t have shot him if you weren’t sure that he was about to kill me.” A trace of sorrow crept into his otherwise calm voice, “I don’t understand why he’d do such a thing, but I believe you.”

                “If they’re going to reject our report anyway, then there’s not much we can do.” Anderson growled, clenching his fists, “Saren will get away with the murder of hundreds of humans, and we’ll be blamed that the mission went to shit.”

                Shepard stared at Anderson in shock, she hadn’t seen him this angry about anything since he’d pulled her out of the foster-care system. He was down-right livid. “We’ll find proof,” she stood, wavering a little on her feet before she straightened, “don’t worry sir, I’ll bring the bastard down.”

                Anderson blinked, watching her, before his face relaxed and he smiled tiredly, “For now just get some rest. We’re headed to the Citadel now.” He turned towards the door, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting to set up with Udina.”

                Shepard watched him go, but her eyes were invariably drawn to the Spectre who was standing there with his arms crossed, watching her with concern. Chakwas stepped between them, and frowned at her, “Get back in bed. You aren’t fully recovered and I want to take a few more scans of your brain activity.”

                Shepard sat on the bed, trying, and failing, to look around Chakwas at Nihlus. She gave up with a grumpy sigh. She needed to talk with him about Saren Arterius. He knew more about Saren than anyone else and she needed all the information she could get. Also, Shepard was worried about him, being betrayed by someone that close to you was a pain that few people would truly understand, and she knew it had to be ripping at him.

                “Nihlus, you can find somewhere else to hover,” Dr. Chakwas turned, “Shepard will be fine. She’ll be out of here in a few hours. Go.”

                Shepard caught his gaze as he turned to leave. The look in his eyes made it clear that they were going to have words later. What kind of words, she wasn’t sure, but the intensity of his stare made her unsure that she wanted to know. The door hissed closed behind him and she sighed in relief. A relief that was short-lived as her hands started shaking harder.

                Chakwas said nothing, only handed her a small black pill. Shepard took it from her and swallowed it quickly, disgusted at the eager tremble of her fingers and the exhilarating pleasure that swept through her as the drug began to take effect. A languid drowsiness weighted down her limbs and stilled the shaking in her muscles and she leaned back onto the bed until she was lying down. “I’m sorry Doc.” She mumbled through lips that were going pleasantly numb, “I know this goes against everything you’ve ever believed in.”

                Karin sighed and touched her fingers lightly to Shepard’s cheek, almost tenderly. “You’ll die without it,” she pressed her lips together and looked away, “and I don’t know enough about it to help you get away from it.” Dr. Chakwas stood brusquely, as if that admission angered her, “Now get some rest. I’ll wake you later.”

                Shepard closed her eyes, hazy memories floating up through her drug fogged mind. She was sixteen and it was only a few months after the attack on Mindoir. The doctors had declared her healthy enough for the hospital to release her into the government’s care in Vancouver. Foster families had fought over her; they all wanted to be the ones who sheltered the only survivor, the girl who was being hailed as a hero. She’d eventually been placed with a wealthy couple, Greg and Sophia Miller, nice enough people with two children of their own, but Skye felt uncomfortable there. Their two kids, Jack and Stephanie, were young and Skye couldn’t look at them without seeing the twisted bodies of children their age on the blood soaked grass of Mindoir.

                It was a sweltering night and she’d snuck out of the house again. She often felt claustrophobic in her room at night, the weight of the dark and the memories pressing in on her from all sides, and she was afraid of sleeping because she would wake up screaming until her throat was raw. The police had already been called several times by the neighbors because of these episodes, and she was tired of causing problems for the Millers, they’d been nothing but kind to her. Still, that kindness felt fake and insincere and she wanted to escape it all.

                She wasn’t afraid as she wandered the streets, the noise and the bustle of the night life was a comforting reminder that these people were alive and unafraid, their laughter spilling out onto the sidewalks like a balm for her nightmares, and she certainly wasn’t afraid of being attacked by the more unsavory elements, she knew how to protect herself, and after Mindoir, she wasn’t conflicted about hurting another in self-defense.

                Tonight she was in a place she shouldn’t have been. The neon lights of the clubs were only specs in the distance, and she could barely hear the loud music, but she was trying to fight through yet another flashback and she wasn’t paying attention to where her feet were taking her. Looming over her on either side of the street were dilapidated brown stone buildings, their doors boarded up and glassless windows staring down at her like empty eyes. Here and there, a ragged curtain hung limply, a tattered eyelid over a corpulent socket. By the time she heard the crunch of footsteps on shattered glass behind her, it was too late.

                A group of men, none of them older than twenty-five, surrounded her, laughing and jeering. Fear filled her, this was exactly like when- _No, don’t remember. Don’t think about that. Don’t remember!_ She gripped the hilt of a small knife in her pocket so hard that her nails dug crescent moons into her palm.

                “What do you want?” Her voice was stronger than her legs, but they didn’t know that her knees felt like jelly.

                “Oh don’t be like that sugar tits,” crooned one guy, “we only want to take you to have some fun.” The other guys laughed at this, clapping the guy who’d spoken like he was a comedy genius. Spurred on by his buddies, the same guy cupped himself and gyrated in a suggestive manner, leering at her, “Let’s go for a ride babe, I promise you’ll have a blast.”

                Skye’s lip lifted in disgust, “I’d rather kiss a hanar, but I’m sure your girlfriends here could use a bit a bit of your fun.”

                The men converged on her angrily. “Now listen here you little slit,” the leader leaned in close, his breath reeking of alcohol, “be a good little whore and drop those pants or you’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

                Skye struck out with her knife, catching him across the eyes. He screamed and stumbled away, clutching his face. Skye ducked away from the men, running as fast as she could, but they followed in pursuit, cursing and yelling. Her heart pounded and fear lent her feet wings, but something struck her upside the back of her head, and sent her tumbling forward and she crashed into the pavement. She tasted blood and tried to drag herself up. Her breath came in mewling gasps as she scrambled forward, but the men caught up to her first. A foot connected with her abdomen and pain radiated through her, her breath leaving her in a painful gag. She couldn’t breathe and the fists and feet of the men were descending on her. She tried to scream, but a boot connected with her mouth and knocked her head back.

                Shepard struggled to wake, she didn’t want to see this again, but the fog of the drug pulled her back under.

                Skye was wracked with pain, dragging her battered body along the cracked pavement, leaving streaks of blood. She struggled to move forward, but something the men had injected her with buzzed in her veins, making her drowsy and quieting the voice in her head screaming at her to run. In fact, she couldn’t remember why she wanted to move forward, staying still felt so much better. She lay limply on the sidewalk, hypnotized by the sight of her blood pooling up around her like a crimson flower blooming.

                Lights began to pulsate in the puddle and she smiled blearily, the shine of the blue and red lights looked so beautiful reflected across the dark surface. If only she’d known that she had something so entrancing inside of her this whole time. Two tall shadows blocked out the lights and she cried out.

                “Looks like we’ve got another dead prostitute.” The voice was male, and he sounded disgruntled.

                The other shadow spoke, a man with a softer voice, “I don’t know, I don’t think she’s dead…”

                The first shadow shrugged, “If she isn’t, she will be soon. It looks like someone really worked her over. Damn,” he sighed angrily, “I was hoping to go home early tonight. I’m tempted to just leave her here for another patrol to deal with.”

                Skye tried to speak up, she didn’t want to be left here. She wanted to go home, it was cold here.

                “Wait!” The second man leaned in close, so close that Skye could almost smell his cologne, like a whiff of black pepper and mint. He brushed her hair out of her face, “I’ve seen her before… This is that girl from Mindoir! You know, the one that survived that raid! We have to take her in, call an ambulance!”

                Her eyes drifted shut, the drug dragging her down. The second man gently touched her cheek, “We’ll get you help.”

                Shepard woke with a gasp, her heart beating so hard it felt like it was about to burst. She sat up, shaking off the bad memory with a shudder. Her skin was crawling. She looked around the med bay and spotted Karin at her desk, asleep with her chin in her hand. Shepard smiled slightly and stood. She winced as she stretched and her muscles pulled taut. She felt better than she had earlier, but the dreams had left her shaken and all she wanted now was a shower and a hot meal.

                The showers called her first and she padded quietly out of the med bay so that she wouldn’t wake Chakwas. As the doors hissed quietly shut behind her, she looked around the empty mess hall. She had no idea what time it was, but it must have been late, there was no movement on the ship and all she could hear was the steady thrum of the drive core pulsing through the soles of her feet. In a way, Shepard was relieved that there was no one around, her dreams had left her rattled and the last thing she wanted to do was talk to someone.

                Fate, it seemed, could care less what she wanted. She groaned inwardly at the sound of footsteps behind her.

                “Commander Shepard.”

                Shepard blinked in surprise and turned around, “Nihlus? What are you still doing in the mess hall?”

                “I’ve been talking to Anderson.” Nihlus stood there stoically.

Shepard paused, waiting for Nihlus to offer more on the subject, but he only stood there. Silently. Like a wall. “Uh…” Shepard looked around at the empty room, searching for a viable escape route, “What time is it?”

“It’s two in the morning. You’ve been sleeping for six hours.” The turian shifted from foot to foot, looking agitated, “How are you feeling?”

                “I’m uh, feeling… fine?” Shepard quirked on eyebrow, this was the first time she’d ever seen the Spectre act so _awkward_. She’d say it was kind of cute, but right now it was just weird and all she really wanted was a shower and food. “Look,” she started, “if you want to talk about what happened on Eden Prime I’d be happy to, but can it wait for a few minutes?”

                Nihlus nodded mutely, but made no effort to move, standing so tensely she was afraid he’d pull a muscle. She turned away slowly, something about his behavior was seriously disturbing her now, and she was almost afraid to put her back to him. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, she didn’t think it was violent, but she was uneasy because he was unpredictable.

                Shepard started towards the showers, but Nihlus reached out and touched her arm lightly. She fought the urge to flinch away from the contact and turned, slightly exasperated. Nihlus pulled his hand away, looking uncomfortable, “I’m… glad… that you’re unharmed…”

                “I’ll be back in a few minutes if you want to talk then.” She smiled tightly and Nihlus nodded again, but this time he moved away and went to sit at one of the tables in the mess as if to wait for her.

* * *

 

                Shepard pondered Nihlus’ strange behavior as the lukewarm, slightly salty water of her shower pounded her shoulders, relaxing her. She sighed beneath the spray, rinsing soap and bad memories from her skin. The heater might be crap, but she’d say this about the Normandy’s showers, they had great water pressure.

She turned to face the shower head and paused, there was a mirror directly across from the stall she was in, and her reflection looked back, long black hair plastered to her pale skin. Her eyes skipped over the numerous scars that marred her skin, some silvery and barely noticeable, while others were red and puckered, raising her skin like angry flags of failure. The worst scars were covered in colorful ink. A flame red kitsune slunk down her left shoulder, covering an acid burn with a trickster’s smile, a jade green dragon curled languidly around her left leg, hiding a large dimple where a chunk had been gouged from her flesh with its treasure horde of variegated green scales. She lovingly traced the black and white feathers of the N7 Eagle that started on her left hip, wings flared, and continued around her back and up onto her right shoulder, screaming in rage where a slaver had laid her open with a bayonet during the Skyllian Blitz.

She smiled wistfully, these tattoos were all that shielded her from the pitying looks people gave her mutilated body. They looked at her with interest now, or disapproval, but never pity, and she could almost say that at the end of the day, her ink was all she had that she truly valued.

                She finished rinsing and turned the water off, frowning as she stepped out of the stall. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about the past, she had a bigger problem to deal with at the moment, seeing as how she’d been thrown under the bus about the whole Eden Prime debacle. If the Council was going to place the blame only on her shoulders, she would accept it, but they might try to include her team, and she wasn’t going to stand for that. _If anyone is going to be able to predict the Council’s actions, it’ll be Nihlus._ Shepard toweled off and dressed. _I wonder if he’s still waiting for me._

She needn’t have worried. When she made her way back into the mess hall, Nihlus was still there, although he was pacing back and forth again, muttering in Cartan, the Turian language. It was odd that he’d turned off his translator, but Shepard ducked out of sight to listen. She could never hope to speak it properly herself, one needed two larynxes to pronounce the required sounds, but she’d always had a knack for languages and Cartan was one of the first alien languages she’d learned.

“What are you doing?” Nihlus muttered, “None of this is a good idea, she’s _iatha_ , not to mention human. The Council will have your head for this. _Scytha_! Keep it together Kryik.”

Shepard promised herself that she’d look up the unfamiliar terms later, but Nihlus was wearing a hole into the deck so she stepped out. She walked into his line of sight and he halted, his head snapping up, Shepard smiled and motioned to the table, “Why don’t you sit? I’m just going to grab something to eat.”

Nihlus edged towards the table, his eyes never leaving her as she moved into what passed as the Normandy’s kitchen. Shepard reached into their pantry, pulling out what looked like a protein bar, which she glowered at distastefully. It wasn’t haute cuisine by any stretch of the imagination, it wasn’t even _hot_ cuisine, but it would fill her up for the time being. She glanced over her shoulder at Nihlus, who was sitting stiffly at the edge of his chair, “Do you want anything?”

His mandibles fluttered almost nervously, Shepard raised one brow and he cleared his throat, “Only you _ki’iani_.”

Shepard was extremely glad that she’d learned long ago to never let her thoughts show on her face and her body, otherwise her jaw would be on the floor. As it was, she kind of wanted to hide. Or throw a nearby coffee mug at his head. Instead, she shook her head as if confused and smiled, “Nihlus, your translator is off.”

He made a great show of turning it back on and apologizing, but he didn’t fool her, then again, he had no idea that she knew Cartan, so who was fooling who here? Nihlus laughed awkwardly, “I said no thank you, but I appreciate the offer.”

Shepard shrugged and turned back to the pantry as she shut it, allowing herself a private moment to question her sanity and his, but when she faced Nihlus again, her friendly mask was back in place. “Well don’t mind me,” she said as she sat across from him, “but I haven’t eaten in more than 24 hours, so I’m starving.”

“You don’t look like you’re starving.”

“Hey,” Shepard pointed the protein bar at him, narrowing her eyes critically, “you’re heading into dangerous waters there.”

He chuckled and some of the awkward tension that had built between them eased. “So what did you want to speak to me about?” Shepard asked.

Nihlus sighed, “I wanted to apologize for questioning your judgment back on Eden Prime.” He suddenly looked tired and ran a hand over his face, “I couldn’t believe that Saren would do such a thing without reason and because of that, I jeopardized the lives of everyone on the mission.”

Shepard smirked, biting into the tasteless bar, “You don’t play well with the other kids do you.” She didn’t phrase it as a question, but Nihlus gave a rueful laugh and shook his head. “Spectres generally don’t,” he looked down at his hands, “and I’ve always been on my own. Honestly, I prefer it that way, but it didn’t escape me that if you hadn’t insisted I stayed with you, I would be dead right now.”

His eyes flicked up to hers and she froze, her cheeks stuffed with protein bar. _Great…_ She cursed her rotten timing. Here he was, admitting that she’d saved his life, and she just _had_ to shove the entire fucking bar in her mouth.

Nihlus laughed, the skin around his eyes softening. “You have crumbs on your face. Here,” he leaned forward, “let me.”

Her heart pounded as Nihlus swiped the pad of a talon over her lip. His touch burned. She jerked back and swallowed involuntarily, forcing the huge lump of food painfully into her throat. Shepard gagged on the protein bar and thrust herself away from the table, her eyes watering. Panicked, she staggered into the kitchen and yanked a water bottle from the fridge. She gulped the cold liquid, her back to the stunned turian.

She heard Nihlus get to his feet. “I apologize for my actions Commander Shepard, I was too forward. I forget that most humans are still unaccustomed to my species. I apologize if I’ve caused you discomfort.” His voice was bland and polite, but the soft warble in his subvocals betrayed his hurt.

_Can I die right now? Please let me die right now._ Shepard turned to face him, her face blazing, “I’m the one who should apologize. You caught me by surprise and I reacted badly.”

“Do you almost throw up when most people touch you?” Nihlus spoke tersely. “If I disgust you so much-

“No, no, no, no!” Shepard held up her hands, stopping him, “That’s not it! You _definitely_ don’t disgust me. I just seem to always do the wrong thing at the wrong time. Especially around you, it seems. I have more tact than this, usually, I’m pretty sure, maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I notice my blunders more when I’m around you. I’m not like this,” she knew she was rambling and that she sounded slightly hysterical, but she couldn’t help herself, her mouth had a mind of its own, “I was just hungry and I took too big of a bite and then you just touched my face and there I am with food in my cheeks like some sort of rodent and I panicked and swallowed and nearly choked myself so I swear it’s not-

Nihlus lunged forward and pressed the hard ridges of his mouth to her softer lips, effectively stopping her mindless blathering, and backed her up against the fridge behind her. Desire raged through her so suddenly that it left her dizzy and she definitely wasn’t the only one feeling it. Nihlus lifted her up and she hitched her legs around his waist. She groaned and gave into the kiss, it felt too good at this point to waste time listening to the little voice that told her this was a bad idea.

All too soon, and despite her muttered protest, Nihlus pulled back and set her back on her feet, panting. They both laughed breathlessly, neither of them had quite been prepared for that it seemed. He traced her cheek with one talon, a thoughtful look in his eyes. Shepard could feel her heart pounding and her knees grew weaker the longer his talon traced fire along her jaw.

“You scared me today.” His gaze flicked across her face as if memorizing it. “I woke up just in time to see the beacon explode and throw you across the port like a rag doll.” His voice darkened with a nameless emotion and he looked away, “I thought my heart would stop.” Shepard gulped as he leaned in again and burning green filled her field of vision.

Nihlus’ voice was no more than a rumble, “And I didn’t like it.”

He stepped back and laughed again at what could only be described as the “slack-jawed expression” that Shepard knew was on her face. “We’ll discuss this later Commander.” Nihlus was still chuckling as he walked away.

Shepard watched Nihlus disappear around the corner, dazed, confused, and more than a little restless. She pressed the tips of her fingers to her lips, still feeling the rough texture of his hide against them.

_Well shit…_


	8. Mmmm.... Shwarma...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't think the Council really likes our favorite Commander...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shepard has a potty mouth, as per usual

* * *

Their trip back to the Citadel seemed to fly by and in none of their “discussions” did Nihlus once mention Saren’s name or their mutual concern over the reactions of the Council. At least she hoped they had mutual concerns. At least she hoped they had mutual concerns that extended past the fear that someone might walk into her quarters or find them behind the Mako in various stages of undress.

Shepard shook her head and stared into her mug of tar. It was too damn early for this and they were less than ten minutes from making port. Ten more minutes closer to the Council hearing and what could possibly be the end of her intergalactic career. A career that hadn’t actually started yet. She was screwed. She took a sip of her sludge. Her mind turned back to her relationship with the Spectre.

God what was wrong with her? She barely knew Nihlus and somehow she couldn’t stay away from him. Not that they’d done much, a ship is really no place to entertain a tryst if you don’t want tongues wagging, but still. She wasn’t sure what she was more disgusted with, the coffee or herself. She shuddered as another mouthful destroyed what few taste buds she had left. Ok so it was the coffee. Definitely the coffee.

“Commander?” Kaiden pulled her from her contemplation of the less-than-passable imitation coffee and she turned gladly.

“What is it Alenko?” She hoisted her cup, “Care to join me in burning a hole in my stomach?”

Kaiden laughed and grimaced, “You actually drink that? Crosby told me they use that stuff to strip battery acid off of the Mako’s power cells.”

“Oh my,” Shepard peered into the mug with one eye, “that _can’t_ be good for me.” She looked up in exasperation, “Why the hell do they give this shit to us? Like our jobs aren’t dangerous enough! Now we have to be careful that the coffee doesn’t liquefy our intestines too?”

Kaiden laughed again, shaking his head, “Well before you melt, I have a few questions.”

“Shoot!” Shepard smiled.

“This hearing with the Council, it’s _only_ going to be about Saren right?” Alenko shifted uncomfortably, and Shepard couldn’t blame him. The thought that an intergalactic superpower could be about to rip you a new one was daunting to say the least.

Shepard nodded, “You can relax Alenko. The Council is only going to be seeing us because of our allegations against Saren and if they decide to punish us for the destruction of the beacon, I’ll make sure the team doesn’t take any heat.” She winked and then winced as she took a swig of her coffee, “I take care of my own.”

Alenko frowned, “And that’s what I’m worried about. You didn’t destroy the beacon. I think I did and if you hadn’t thrown me away from it, it would have fried my implants. I saw the sparks coming from your helmet when it blew your comm systems. You saved my life. I won’t repay you by throwing you under the bus for _my_ mistake.”

“Stop being such a putz.” Shepard glowered at him, “You are under _my_ command. Your mistakes are by extension _my_ mistakes. And anyway, I know well enough how politicians can ruin a career. I’m not letting that happen to you and Williams, nor am I going to let them tarnish Jenkins’ death.” She held up a hand to forestall Alenko’s protests, “Now if you would go collect Ashley and meet me in the comm room for a debrief, I’d appreciate it. We’re landing soon and Anderson wants the entire ground team to go to the hearing.”

Alenko nodded, and looking none too happy about it, left her with her mug of pitch to find Williams. Shepard sighed with a feeling of resignation. None of this was going to end well.

* * *

 

“Ah Captain Anderson, I’m so pleased that you bothered to show up.” Ambassador Udina greeted them as they stepped off of the Normandy. Shepard forced her sneer from her face and schooled her expression into one of polite disinterest. She did not like the man; with his pinched face and his constant air of callous condescension, he made insulting people an Olympic sport.

Udina shot her a look of contempt, “Commander Shepard. I was unimpressed with your report.”

_Aaand_ that was it. His professional opinion of her _entire_ military career from start to finish, but it seems he wasn’t done with her. His face screwed up as if he’d just sucked a lemon, “You’ve put me in a precarious position with the Council. Because of your massive screw up with the beacon, it’s become a question, not of them denying your entry into the Spectres, that’s a given, but of them ever offering humanity another chance to become a Spectre in the next thirty years. Not to mention how far back this has put us from ever getting a human _on_ the damn Council in the first place.”

“If I might interject here, Ambassador Udina?” Nihlus stepped forward. His face was calm, but Shepard detected a hint of irritation creeping into his subvocals. Udina turned to face him and if his expression was anything to go by, he found him just as useless as he found Shepard, but his voice was only slightly more respectful when he asked Nihlus to continue. Nihlus cast Shepard a look out of the corner of his eye and raised a brow plate as if to say “can you believe this ponce?”

But he was the picture of tact when he spoke, “I believe the Council can see reason. I’ve made an official report and as one of the top Spectre agents, my word will carry weight. Yes losing the beacon was a setback, but I believe I can keep humanity from taking the heat for this failure. Saren was an unforeseen obstacle and the Council will recognize that.”

Udina pursed his lips, looking unconvinced, “We’ll see about that Spectre Kryik. In the meantime,” he turned to Anderson, “meet me at the Citadel Tower. The hearing starts in an hour.” He gave them all one last scathing look and stalked away.

“And that’s why I don’t like politicians.” Williams glared at Udina’s retreating back with disgust.

“You and I both,” Anderson sighed, “but this one serves a purpose and he fights for humanity with a passion.” Shepard snorted and crossed her arms, “I worry that his ‘passion’ will become zealotry with very little prompting. I don’t trust the little weasel.”

Anderson shot Shepard a quelling glance, “Regardless of how you feel about him, he’s managed to get us this hearing in very little time, and that’s an impressive feat on its own. Shepard, during this meeting, I expect you to at least _try_ to be respectful.”

“Aye-aye Cap’n!” Shepard snapped a saucy salute at her adopted father/commanding officer, earning a long-suffering sigh. Anderson shook his head and walked past, muttering to himself, “Sometimes I wonder why I even try…”

Shepard grinned and turned to Williams and Alenko. She clapped and rubbed her hands together, “You heard the man! Let’s head to the Tower, we can’t be late for our debut.”

With that, they made their way, irritatingly slowly, down the elevator and into the C-Sec Academy lobby. Walking towards the Presidium elevator, Shepard watched the various officers go about their duties curiously. As an infiltrator, she was always interested in getting a closer look at security forces, if only to figure out how to sneak past them. Old habits die hard she guessed. She didn’t find C-Sec all that special; they were like most overworked and overspread police force, tired and easy to fool.

She was so focused on watching the C-Sec officers across the lobby, she didn’t see the one in front of her till she slammed into him. “Christ!” She toppled him over and they went down in a flurry of papers and flailing arms. “Sorry about that!” Shepard looked up at the poor guy she’d bowled over and blinked in surprise. He was a young turian with blue markings on his mandibles, cheeks, and across his nose. He was staring at her oddly with vibrant, if annoyed, blue eyes.

“Shepard! Shepard are you ok?” Nihlus helped her up and glared down at the younger turian before offering him a hand as well. The blue-eyed male hesitated slightly before taking Nihlus’ proffered hand.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Shepard waved off Nihlus’ attentions and turned to help collect the papers that had flown every which way when she knocked them out of the other turian’s hands. “Sorry again…” She trailed off questioningly.

The turian considered her for a pause, “Garrus. Garrus Vakarian. You’re Shepard? As in Commander Shepard of the Alliance Navy?”

“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage Mr. Vakarian. You’ve obviously heard of me, but I know nothing about you.” She handed him the rest of his papers. Something about him just didn’t sit right, he was too fidgety. He was agitated and seemed overly irritated at the delay their “accident” had caused him. Though the slip of paper he stuffed into her hand when he took the stack from her, gave her a clear understanding of the whole episode.

His mandibles fluttered in a small, nervous smile, “Then most people have you at a disadvantage. Your name is _well_ known around these parts. Don’t be surprised if you get approached for an autograph or two.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Shepard gave him her best, mega-watt smile, concealing the paper he’d slipped her in her sleeve. He dipped his head and continued on his way, holding her gaze as he walked past. Nihlus watched him as well, standing close behind her, and the younger turian looked up at him curiously before he turned a corner and was gone.

Nihlus looked down at Shepard, “What was that about?”

“A warning I think.” Shepard glanced over her shoulder at Alenko and Williams, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

“Heaven will direct it.” Alenko said seriously.

Shepard grinned, pleasantly surprised. It was always good to see someone else who appreciated art. “Nay,” she touched her sleeve and felt the note crinkle against her skin, “let us follow him.”

Ashley looked back and forth between the two of them, a crease forming on her brow. “If you’d like to let us in on this little secret code you two have going that would be great.”

“Hamlet, Act one, Scene four.” Shepard stepped into the elevator and shrugged, “It means that our stay here is probably going to get messy.”

* * *

 

Shepard waited until she was alone to pull the note from her sleeve. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the others, but when a C-Sec officer goes to elaborate measures to slip you secret missives, looking like a pyjack in a varren pit all the while, it was usually a good idea to keep the number of people involved at a minimum. So she’d sent everyone else ahead of her into the Citadel Tower, claiming that her small bladder had struck again. As it usually did, the mention of any kind of bodily function spurred her companions to leave without complaint, though Nihlus did give her a questioning look as he went up the steps.

She smoothed the wrinkles out of the small scrap of paper:

**_I’m an incredibly huge fan! If you aren’t doing anything tonight, would you care to meet me at Flux around 8-ish? I’ll buy._ **

As she read it, the words blurred together and morphed into an entirely different language. The experience was so peculiar that Shepard had to rub her eyes before she looked at the note again.

**_Saren ectivusulique antat. Nulli’i. Vox vike’is, eun qutian nullu’um. Habet ora anatem kavet tu Tem um._ **

It was written in Cartan. _Someone knows more about me than they let on…_

**_Saren has agents planted everywhere. Trust no one. You’ll see me at the hearing, but we’ve never met before. Meet me in the hospital in the Wards tonight._ **

Something rotten in the state of Denmark indeed. This note made her feel like the hearing was probably just for show. Nothing was going to be done about Saren if his claws were sunk in _this_ deep. That officer had laced this paper with a biometric scanner, ensuring that the true message would only be revealed if _she_ was the one reading it. Which meant that he was well and truly spooked, if this thing wasn’t all for her benefit anyway.

She pulled a small vial of cloudy pink liquid from a bandolier across her chest and sprinkled the paper with a couple of drops. Almost instantly, the paper shriveled up and crumbled into a fine powder that Shepard dusted off her palms. With that out of the way, she had a sham trial to get to.

Shepard jogged up the steps into the Tower, although it could only be considered a tower in the meanest sense. The only thing that made it tower-like was the number of god-forsaken stairs she had to climb. It was a damn good thing she was in really good shape, otherwise she would have only made the atrium landing by crawling the last few flights. As it was, even she had to pause to take a deep breath.

It was fortunate that she had stopped when she did, otherwise she would have missed out on the rather intriguing argument between the C-Sec officer, Garrus, and an older turian who was dressed like he was used to having his orders followed.

“Sir, if you can just stall them for maybe two more hours,” Garrus sounded angry and his subvocals hummed with desperation, “I’m _this_ close to proving Saren’s guilty! I have a lead I want to look into-

The older turian cut him off with a sharp gesture, “Look Vakarian, you had your chance, but this is one case you just can’t win. You’re out of time and the Council wants to move this through quickly.” He strode away, “There’s nothing I can do.”

Garrus growled and took a step after him, “But Executor Pallin!”

“Go home Vakarian.” The Executor called over his shoulder.

Garrus cursed and clenched his fists. He looked up and noticed Shepard standing there. “Commander Shepard, I’m Garrus Vakarian, C-Sec. I was assigned Saren’s case. I wish I could offer you good news, but my investigation turned up less than nothing.” He greeted her as if seeing her for the first time.

“Pleased to meet you Officer Vakarian. You sound as if you want to take out Saren, a fellow turian, yourself.” Shepard watched him closely, but he didn’t betray any hint that he had already met her. Or that he was in the habit of stuffing cryptic messages into the hands of passer-by.

“It’s that he’s turian that has me so angry.” His mandibles closed tightly against his face and his voice vibrated with frustration, “He’s a disgrace to my people, but I couldn’t get enough on him to prove anything. With any luck, the Council will listen to you and Spectre Kryik.”

Shepard looked up to the entrance of the Council chambers with a wry twist of her lips, “Here’s to hoping. Now if you’ll excuse me.” She inclined her head and swept past him. Dread settled in the pit of her stomach as she trotted up the last flight of stairs, but she squared her shoulders and put a confident swagger into her step. Nothing irritates politicians more than a soldier that remains emotionally unaffected by their machinations, except for a soldier who does so with enormous amounts of sarcasm.

Anderson met her at the top of the stairs and he looked her over with barely contained resignation. He sighed and shook his head, “The hearing has already started. Please, don’t make this any worse than it already is.”

“Don’t worry,” Shepard chirped with fake enthusiasm, marching into the Council Chambers, “we’re going to lose the trial no matter what _I_ do.” Anderson looked askance at her and fell into step beside her.

“I wish I knew who gave you your disgustingly cheery optimism.” He muttered.

Shepard whispered through the beginnings of what would be a painfully bright smile, “Got it from you Dad.” They could hear Udina ranting about the destruction of Eden Prime, but Anderson still chuckled quietly as they approached.

“Ambassador Udina, please,” the asari Councilor held up a hand to halt his tirade, “we will discuss reparations for the colonists of Eden Prime _only if_ Saren Arterius has been found guilty. That is why we are here yes?” Her image on the Councilor’s podium flickered blue and she looked up at Shepard, “Now that we’re all here, we may begin.”

Shepard smiled wider when she saw the projection of Saren looming over the proceedings, scowling mightily, his face bandaged. She gave him a little wave when she caught his eye _(ha, ha, ha, punny me)._ “Why hello there Popeye. I bet this place looks half as pretty for you as it does for me.”

Saren snarled and the crest of his fringe lifted. _Wow, I’ve never seen a turian that angry. I have a gift._ His voice was shaking with the force of his rage, “You will be held accountable for this human.”

She shrugged and smirked, “Speaking of counting, you already have one reason why you shouldn’t threaten me. It’d be a shame to add the other one.”

“ _Ooh burn…”_ Williams nudged Alenko with her elbow and he shushed her.

The turian Councilor cut in before Saren could respond, “If you’re quite finished Commander Shepard?” Shepard paused as if thinking, but the Councilor continued, “That was rhetorical. Moving on. The allegations you’ve laid against Spectre Arterius are serious. You claim he enlisted the aid of the Geth, who have not been seen outside of the Perseus Veil in two-hundred years, to attack a human colony without provocation. Is this correct?”

Shepard nodded and crossed her arms, “That about sums it up, Councilor. In fact, he’s also guilty of trying to kill a fellow Spectre.”

“Ah yes, the supposed attempt on Spectre Kryik’s life.” The salarian Councilor’s voice was dripping with incredulity, “And yet no one aside from you, Commander Shepard, saw Spectre Arterius raise his weapon in a threatening manner.”

Saren glared at her with contempt, “It’s disgusting to believe that I would ever harm Spectre Kryik.” He glanced at Nihlus, “And I’m disappointed that you would ever think me capable of such a thing, that you would trust the word of this _human_ despite the years you’ve known me.”

Nihlus narrowed his eyes dangerously, “Commander Shepard had no reason to lie about your treachery. I believe she spoke truthfully in her report of your actions at the warehouses.”

Saren only snarled at his former protégé.

Udina stepped forward, sensing that things were starting to slip from his control, “Why were you on Eden Prime in the first place?”

“I don’t have to explain my methods to you.” Saren sneered, “I am granted leeway in accordance to my position to complete my missions as I see fit. You humans believe that everyone in the universe must be held accountable to humanity’s questionable principles, despite your apparent disability to hold yourselves responsible for your own actions. As a species, you are lousy with hypocrisy of the vilest kind.”

A vein popped up on Udina’s forehead and Shepard worried for a moment that he was going to have an aneurism before he turned stiffly to face the Councilors, “He freely _admits_ that he was there during the attack, if the wound on his eye wasn’t enough physical evidence.”

The asari Councilor looked calmly up at Saren’s image, “Ambassador Udina is correct. We must know why you were at the human colony Spectre Arterius.”

“I’ve been hunting down a drug lord known as Sirius, responsible for the massive amounts of xeno6 that have been circulating among the public in the last two years.” He drew himself up haughtily, “I had a lead that brought me to the warehouses of Eden Prime and I was caught in the middle of the Geth invasion as a result.”

Saren continued, looking straight at the Councilors, “And what of the beacon? I read the same reports that you did, this human allowed her men to tamper with the artifact and destroy it. Granting Spectre status to this,” he waved vaguely in Shepard’s direction, “this _incompetence_ , would be a mistake.”

“I didn’t realize I needed your approval, _Blinky_.” Shepard kept a pleasant smile on her face, and though she was burning with resentment, Saren’s palpable wrath was a pleasant balm of satisfaction.

He whipped around to face her, “Your species is a blight on the face of Council Space. Young and greedy, you are all parasites that demand and take everything that others must work for. You need to learn your place!”

Shepard pursed her lips and pouted with mock sympathy, “You weren’t hugged enough as a child were you?”

Saren only screamed with fury and lunged forward as if to strike her down. The feed cut out and Saren’s image disappeared. The Councilors watched, radiating disapproval. Shepard just shrugged, inwardly she was patting her back and doing her happy dance, she _loved_ getting the last word.

The turian Councilor sighed, “We are not here to discuss Commander Shepard’s candidacy for the Spectres, only whether Saren is guilty of the crimes of which you have accused him.”

The Councilors looked at one another for less than a split second and the asari Councilor spoke, “The evidence you have brought before us is not enough for us to definitively prove Saren’s guilt. We find him not guilty of attacking Eden Prime.”

“And as for Commander Shepard’s induction into the Spectre program,” the salarian Councilor said brusquely, “we’ll discuss that tomorrow.” One by one, the Councilor’s images disappeared as they disconnected from their video communicators.

Udina glared daggers at Shepard before snorting in disgust and tromping off, Anderson reluctantly in tow. Everyone else just stood there silently. Williams giggled.

“So, _that_ went well.” Shepard rocked back and forth on her toes, swinging her arms. She smiled at her crew, “Anybody hungry? How about shawarma?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, for anyone confused, she and Nihlus have not been doing the hanky-panky. That comes later... maybe...


	9. Strippers, Skycars, and Something Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard has a hard time staying still and anyway, she has a good reason for destroying stuff, really!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language, violence, gore, blah-blah, also, don't read if you can somehow get vertigo from imagination

* * *

As it turned out, no one was hungry, but everyone did get dragged into Udina’s office, where Shepard endured what seemed like an eternity of Udina’s badgering before Anderson stopped him. “We need to find the proof we need to get Saren’s Spectre status revoked or we are never going to learn what he was doing on Eden Prime,” he looked over at Shepard, “or what he wanted with whatever was on the beacon.”

That was how she was ordered out on a scavenger hunt to find a volus, a drunken former C-Sec agent, and Garrus Vakarian. She sent Alenko and Williams to talk to the volus, something neither of them were too pleased about, and she went with Nihlus to find the drunk. Yaaaaay…

So here she was, standing outside of a shady club in the Wards really with no need to go in except to keep up appearances. She knew where Vakarian would be, so she didn’t need the drunk to tell her where he was. Nihlus stopped beside her and they both looked up at the neon sign of a dancing asari kicking up her leg.

“Rick’s… classy.” Nihlus snickered.

“God,” Shepard muttered darkly, “it’s like spring break in Tampa all over again.”

Nihlus raised a brow, “Tampa?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Shepard shuddered slightly, “Come on, if we’re looking for washed up, drunken C-Sec agents, we’ve come to the right place.”

The smell that wafted out of the doors, along with the thump of incredibly obnoxious electronic music, made Shepard’s eyes water. _The things I do for the Alliance_. She forged ahead into the den of iniquity and rampant VD with determination, Nihlus close behind.

It took a second for Shepard’s eyes to adjust to the dimness in the club, but when they did, she almost wished they hadn’t. The floors were littered with the unfortunate debris of lonely drunks, be it bodily fluid or article of clothing, and the air carried the dank smell of body spray, alcohol, and angst.

“Smells like teen spirit!” Shepard whispered in a sing-song voice.

Nihlus scanned the room, “I don’t see anyone matching Harkin’s description here.”

Shepard walked farther in, skirting a floor cage in which a human girl was gyrating wildly. She scoffed and shook her head, the girl had _no_ rhythm. Harkin had to be here somewhere. Shepard motioned to Nihlus that they should split up and he nodded.

With Nihlus headed to the other side of the half empty room, Shepard moved into the shadows that lingered along the walls. From what Anderson had said of Harkin, she wasn’t expecting him to take the sight of a fully armed turian in hunt-and-destroy mode very well, and she believed that he would rabbit at the first sign of trouble. Turns out she was right.

“Shepard!” She barely heard Nihlus’ shout over the blaring music, but she did see the man running towards her hiding spot and as he looked back at the turian pursuing him, Shepard stepped out and clotheslined him. She stared down at Harkin, who was rolling on the muck coated floor gasping, with her hands on her hips.

“I caught him!” She said happily.

Nihlus pulled Harkin off of the floor with a grunt, “I see that, Randy Savage.” He heaved the insensate drunk over his shoulder, “Let’s move this to a more pleasant local shall we?”

Shepard looked askance at Nihlus with an amused chuff, “Randy Savage? You watch human pro-wrestling? _1980’s_ pro-wrestling?”

“It was a very, very late night…” Nihlus didn’t seem to be too proud of that admission. Shepard could only laugh, picturing the turian flipping the channel to find an ancient rerun of the cheesy human sport.

The “pleasant local” Nihlus found to interrogate Harkin at, was only slightly cleaner than Rick’s seedy little strip joint, and it looked suspiciously like the same alleyway Shepard had used to escape the armed thugs just a month before. Still, you’ve seen one trash filled alley, you’ve seen them all. Nihlus threw Harkin down into an unceremonious heap onto the ground, where he slouched unconscious.

Nihlus moved as if to slap him awake, but Shepard stopped him. “I’ve got this,” she said, and she pulled an opaque vial from her bandolier and uncorked it. When she wafted the open bottle underneath Harkin’s nose, he woke with a gasp. Then he turned green from his collar to his scalp and leaned over to wretch.

“Shepard, I never want you to cook anything that I eat.” Nihlus’ tone was flat.

She crossed her arms, affronted.  “I’ll have you know I’m an excellent cook.” She said over the sounds of Harkin evacuating the contents of his stomach on the ground. Nihlus just shook his head and waited for Harkin to stop gagging.

“Shit,” Harkin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, glaring up at them, “who are you? And what do you want with me?”

Shepard smiled sweetly, “Just a little information Harkin, that’s all we want.”

“Well you can go fuck yourself you bint.” He spat a glob of mucus at her feet.

Shepard continued as if he hadn’t spoken, although she did lay a hand on Nihlus’ arm to keep him from stepping forward to kick Harkin in the crotch, “You see, we’re looking for a C-Sec officer by the name of Garrus Vakarian, and we heard that you were the man to ask. So here we are, asking.”

Harkin glared up at them with wary, bloodshot eyes, “I don’t know where he is, but I’m familiar with the name. The guy’s a regular Dirty Harry. Doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“Neither do I,” Shepard leaned forward, “and I’m much nicer than my friend here, so you really want to cooperate with me on this one.” They both looked up at Nihlus, who did his best to look imposing and violent. She could definitely say he succeeded with very little effort.

Harkin gulped and looked back and forth between Shepard and Nihlus, “If I tell you where you can find him, will you leave me alone?’

“Of course we will!” Shepard straightened and offered him a hand, “And you’ll never see us again.”

Harkin took her hand and she hoisted him to his feet. She made no effort to be discreet when she wiped her hand on her pants leg, but Harkin didn’t seem to care. He belched and Shepard’s lip curled with disgust. “Last I heard, he was sniffing around this doctor in the Wards. Dr. Michelle I think, but that’s all I know.”

Wow, this Vakarian character really had a lot to learn about subterfuge if even this nasty slug knew where he was. _So much for that fancy secret note_. Shepard thanked Harkin and watched him stumble out of the alley, troubled. If even Harkin knew where this officer was, despite his attempt to keep it quiet, it pretty much guaranteed that his location was common knowledge. And if Vakarian was worried about the wrong people knowing, it meant he was certainly in trouble now.

“Come on,” she said to Nihlus, “I want to rendezvous with the others before we head to this Dr. Michelle’s.”

Nihlus followed her out of the alley, “Are you expecting trouble?”

“Something like that,” she mumbled, “let’s just call it a hunch.”

* * *

 

Shepard stopped so suddenly in the doorway to Udina’s office that Nihlus bumped into her from behind.

“What’s going on?” Nihlus peered over her head. “Oh I have to hear this one…”

Alenko and Williams stood there, trying and failing to look nonchalant, next to a heavily armed and armored krogan with vicious scars across his head and face. The krogan watched them with an air of amusement in his red eyes.

Shepard recovered quickly from her surprise and strode into the room, “Alenko, Williams, are you going to introduce your new friend to the rest of the class?”

“Commander Shepard this is Urdnot Wrex.” Alenko shrugged, “The volus you sent us to told us that Saren betrayed the Shadow Broker.”

“Also, the Shadow Broker hired Wrex to kill someone named Fist who is helping Saren.” Williams glanced out of the corner of her eye at the hulking krogan, clearly uncomfortable, “He insisted that we bring him here to see you.”

Shepard eyed Wrex critically and turned off her translator, speaking to him in his own harsh language, “ _Well met Urdnot Wrex_.”

Wrex’s eyes widened slightly with surprise, “You speak Kalrok?”

“ _I only know how to say hello, and how to say I only know how to say hello.”_ Shepard grinned.

Wrex laughed, “I like you Shepard.”

She dipped her head with a wink, “ _Declarations of partiality aside, what is it you wish to discuss?”_

“You’re going after Saren. Fist is helping Saren. I’m after Fist.” Wrex crossed his arms, “I believe that makes my point.”

“ _Welcome aboard team Shepard, Wrex.”_ Shepard was all too happy to accept his help. There were few problems that couldn’t be solved with a rampaging krogan, and Wrex looked like he could handle himself well in a fight.

                “It’s weird to only understand half of a conversation.” Williams griped.

                Shepard turned her translator back on and sat on a corner of Udina’s desk, “Wrex has offered to throw his lot in with us, at least as far as getting to Fist. If this Fist guy has been helping Saren, chances are he knows something about what Saren is up to now, which means that we need to find Fist too.”

                “In the meantime, I also have news.” Shepard shifted farther onto Udina’s desk until she could swing her legs without her feet touching the floor. That she was messing up the almost anal retentive neatness of Udina’s stuff at the same time was completely unrelated, but welcome nonetheless. “If you’ll recall the turian that I bumped into this morning before the hearing? It seems that he’s getting himself into trouble just about now and we need to go pull his fat from the fire, so to speak.”

                She hopped of the desk, “In fact, we need to head out now. He’s in the Wards investigating around a med clinic run by a Dr. Michelle and I have a feeling that the people he didn’t want finding him there are going to find him there.”

                “So Wrex, I’m afraid that Fist will have to wait a minute, but I promise to make it up to you with a good fight and a decent amount of bloodshed.” Shepard apologized, but the krogan only shrugged. _Apology accepted then._

                She looked around the room, the familiar excitement she felt before a fight building, making her restless on her feet. “Williams, I want you here in case Anderson returns to debrief him. Alenko I want you in the Embassy Lobby, keep an eye out for anyone suspicious.”

                “See you crazy kids in a few, and hopefully we’ll be bringing back a _living_ C-Sec officer.” Shepard motioned to Nihlus and Wrex and they followed her out of Udina’s office. Shepard jogged through the embassy, ignoring the political bustle around her. She had a destination in mind, and the faster they could get there the better, she really didn’t want to see that turian dead because of his mistake in believing that his activities were secret.

                They reached the rapid transit terminal, and luckily, there was a skycar already waiting there. Shepard lurched forward and opened the door before an asari and female turian could get to it first. “Sorry!” She grinned, not at all apologetic, “On an important mission that could have galactic consequences. You don’t mind waiting for the next one do you? Thank you, I thought you’d say that. You ladies are just _gems_! Get in boys!” Nihlus and Wrex piled in after her, Nihlus giving the women a shrug before squeezing in next to Wrex.

                The skycar lurched as Shepard gunned the throttle and sent it rocketing straight upwards. She whooped as the force slammed her into the pilot’s seat and laughed as Nihlus started cursing. Nihlus’ hoarsely shouted expletives continued as Shepard weaved dangerously in and out of the traffic rushing by high above the Presidium grounds. They spun, and ducked, and whizzed through the air, Shepard humming “Speed Racer” and Nihlus searching desperately for something other than the unfazed krogan sitting next to him to hold onto.

                Shepard tipped the skycar into a suicide dive and sped back to the ground, the terminal rising rapidly to meet them. Wrex started laughing and threw his hands up as Shepard’s reckless dive left their stomachs nearly fourteen stories above the Wards.

“SHEPAAAAAARRRRRD!!!!!!”

Nihlus was less than amused.

                With expert precision, Shepard levelled out the skycar and they landed abruptly at the terminal station with a jolt.

                * _Ding_ * “ _Thank you for choosing Citadel Rapid Transit,_ ” came a pleasant female voice from the terminal, “ _have a lovely day Commander Shepard.”_

                Nihlus threw the door open and stumbled onto solid ground and he bent over with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. Wrex exited the skycar with a leisurely motion and snorted derisively, “I always knew turians had weak wills.”

                Shepard popped out of the pilot’s seat with a beaming laugh, “Let’s do that again!” Nihlus shot her a nasty scowl and straightened stiffly, readjusting his armor with jerky movements. “Or not,” she shrugged, “that’s ok too.”

                Shepard ignored the grumpy glares directed her way as she led her motley crew through the Wards to Dr. Michelle’s office. He could pout all he wanted, but she’d gotten them here in less than three minutes, which had to have broken a record somewhere, not to mention a few laws.

                The farther into the Wards they went, the more disreputable it became. The doctor had to have chosen the worst place for her clinic, smack dab in the middle of the Citadel’s seedy underbelly. As their surroundings became increasingly threatening, Nihlus seemed to forget his ire over the ride in the skycar, and they all loosened their weapons in their holsters.

                Voices reached them from ahead around a shadowed corner and Shepard halted, motioning for Wrex and Nihlus to follow her quietly. She ghosted across the ground and pressed her back against the corner, Wrex and Nihlus joining her. How a krogan could move so quietly, she wasn’t sure, but she was pleasantly surprised.

                “You sure he’s in there?” a male asked in a quiet voice.

                “Yeah I’m sure. Fist said he’d be here. All we have to do is wait for him to run out and then we kill him.”

                Shepard inched forward and slid a small mirror out of her sleeve to see how many thugs were waiting to ambush the C-Sec officer. She grinned sliding the mirror back into its pocket, she’d counted ten pairs of boots, this was going to be fun. It was hard to keep herself from jumping straight into the fray, especially with her heart beating this hard, but she’d promised Wrex that he’d get a good fight.

                She turned back to Nihlus and Wrex and signaled the number of enemies around the corner. Then she pointed to Wrex and his face cracked into a toothy smile and he rolled his shoulders before he charged into the mass of thugs, roaring and glowing blue with biotics. The screams of the men around the corner and Wrex’s roars were joined by the sound of gun fire, but that was quickly silenced. All in all, the whole fight lasted less than a minute.

                Shepard trotted out and laughed. Wrex was covered in blood and had a struggling batarian in a headlock under one arm and a human under the other. He looked up at her with a bored sigh before he slammed their heads together and dropped them, probably dead, to the floor. His ruby eyes glared at her, “You promised me a good fight Shepard. This wasn’t it.”

                She didn’t bother to ask him if he was injured, none of that blood was his. “Stick around for a little while. I’ll get into enough trouble to keep you occupied.” She patted his shoulder as she walked past him into the med clinic.

                The second she was through the door, her initial excitement over the confrontation vanished, cold, clinical determination replacing it. Officer Vakarian was crouched behind a low wall, out of sight of the human thugs that were threatening Dr. Michelle. Shepard had her heavy pistol in her hand the second the thug nearest the doctor saw her. He snatched the woman around the throat and pulled her in front of him.

                “Stay where you are or the doctor gets it!” He shouted.

                There was an innocent involved now and Shepard was going to take no chances, “Easy,” she said, her pistol still ready, “don’t do anything you’re going to regre-

                Just then, Vakarian jumped up and shot the man straight between the eyes. He spun, blood and brain matter exploding out of the back of his head before he collapsed. Dr. Michelle screamed, spattered with gore and fell to her hands and knees to crawl underneath her exam table. Shepard snarled and targeted the next thug before he could switch his aim from her to the brash turian and put two rounds in his chest. His shields flickered and went out and the second shot killed him instantly.

                It wasn’t much of a fire fight, just four goons against four significantly better trained soldiers, and the goons went down quickly. Shepard holstered her pistol with a growl and marched past Vakarian, silencing whatever he had been about to say with an icy glare, to help Dr. Michelle out from under the table.

                “Dr. Michelle, are you hurt?” Seeing how rattled the pale woman was, Shepard kept her voice soothing and her eyes soft and reassuring. Michelle shook her head jerkily, grimacing with horror as the blood-soaked strands stuck to her cheek.

                Shepard brushed the hair out of her face and grabbed a nearby roll of gauze, ripping off a strip with her teeth and using it to wipe the blood from the doctor’s face. “Dr. Michelle, do you know why those men were here?” She smiled encouragingly at her and Michelle swallowed hard.

                “I recently treated a young quarian girl. Her suit had been breached and she was fighting a nasty infection, she almost didn’t make it here, her fever was so bad.” Her lip trembled, “I-I don’t think they wanted me, they kept asking me where she was, but I don’t know. All I know is that she wanted to sell information in return for protection.”

                “Do you know what the information was about?” Nihlus strode forward and the doctor paled even more. Shepard shot an exasperated look over her shoulder and he stepped back so that he wasn’t looming over the terrified woman.

                Tears filled Michelle’s eyes, “I-I d-don’t know! I-I don’t re-remember what she said!”

                “Shh, shh, calm down,” Shepard put steadying hands on the doctor’s shoulders, “just take a deep breath and tell me what you _do_ remember.”

                Michelle squeezed her eyes shut and took a shaky breath and then another, visibly struggling to calm herself, and failing. She shook her head quickly and bit her bottom lip to keep it from shaking as tears tracked through the blood on her cheeks. Shepard had to resist the urge to hug her, she knew that physical contact was the last thing this woman needed, or wanted, right now.

Instead, Shepard pulled out a packet of herbs she had carefully mixed and tossed it to Nihlus, “Put that in some hot water.”

He looked at it incredulously, “Where, exactly, do you expect me to find hot water?”

Dr. Michelle sniffed thickly, “There’s a machine in the corner that dispenses boiling water. I use it to make tea.”

“Good,” Shepard smiled, “because you’re about to have some very _good_ tea.”

She got a small smile out of the doctor. “Mugs are in the cabinet above.” Her voice was small and tired.

They sat there in a tense silence while Nihlus prepped the tea. Shepard refused to look at Vakarian, who was pacing back and forth, and Wrex had stepped outside to “watch for reinforcements,” but she knew that it was for the doctor’s benefit. It was hard to relax around a krogan who was spattered with enough blood to fill a small child.

When Nihlus handed her the steaming, fragrant cup, Michelle inhaled the aroma wafting from the mug and some of the tension in her face eased. She sighed, “I didn’t understand much of what the quarian was talking about, but I remember hearing the name Saren.” Michelle made an appreciative sound as she sipped the murky liquid, “I’m truly sorry, but that’s all I remember about her information. I don’t know why those men wanted her so badly, but I do know that she was going to see Fist about the Shadow Broker.”

Shepard grimaced, Fist again. This was bad, especially if he really was in league with Saren. They had to find this quarian. She patted Michelle’s shoulder and stood, “You’re safe now doctor,” she caught Vakarian’s eye, “and C-Sec has been notified about what’s taken place here.” Vakarian nodded, his mandible’s flattened to his face in irritation, but he raised a three fingered hand to his comm and called the disturbance in.

He walked up to the doctor and she flinched back. He knelt in front of her, “I’m very sorry Dr. Michelle, and I didn’t mean to put you in danger. Some officers will be here shortly, they’ll take care of you.”

Shepard jerked her head and walked out of the doctor’s earshot, Vakarian following her.

“It’s a good thing you showed up when you did Commander, you provided me a good distraction,” Vakarian grinned slightly, but Shepard cut him off.

She pressed her lips together and when she spoke, her voice was cold, “As impressive as that shot was, you put an innocent in danger. I know you didn’t mean to, and that’s why I’m not pistol whipping you in the face right now, but you put her in more danger than you think.”

“Those men were Fist’s,” Shepard clenched her jaw, “and they were going to kill her regardless of what she could tell them. They weren’t after her, or the quarian, they were after you. And Dr. Michelle would have been a loose end.”

Vakarian took a startled step back, “Wait,” his flanged voice buzzed with confusion, “why were they after me?”

“My guess is that Fist is going to kill the quarian. He’s working with Saren, and if she has information on him, there’s no way he’s letting that get to the Shadow Broker,” Shepard hooked a thumb at the door, “and the ten men out there were to make sure that _you_ never brought any of this to the right attention. Namely mine. Also,” she gave him a sardonic look, “your attempt to keep all of this hush-hush was a miserable failure. Some washed up drunk in the nastiest titty-bar I’ve seen since I graduated boot was able to tell me exactly where you were.”

His mandibles fluttered with embarrassment, but he looked at her with new respect in his eyes, “Then I’m in your debt Commander.”

She shrugged indifferently, “I think I broke at least sixteen different air traffic laws on the way here. If you can clear me on those, then we’re even.”

* * *

 

Shepard moped angrily at the back of Nihlus’ fringed head, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. When they left the med clinic, they’d collected Wrex and double timed it back to the transit system, but when she’d reached for the door, Nihlus had put his foot down. Not that, that had meant much to her, but then he’d practically shoved her into the back when she’d resisted. And now Vakarian was flying them to Chora’s Den.

She flicked the tip of one crest with a sharp snap of her finger. Nihlus cursed and looked back to glare at her as he nursed the injured spike. Shepard shrugged with an innocent expression and pointed at Wrex. Nihlus’ eyes narrowed and he turned back around. She stuck her tongue out at him and Wrex snorted, shaking his head. The skycar tilted down in a fast, yet controlled dive. Shepard rolled her eyes, this Vakarian guy flew like a stiff.

Wrex spoke, his craggy voice holding an air of authority, “I’ve scoped this place out before. If Fist is expecting us, it’ll be heavily fortified, and these guys will be better and have better weapons than the fodder we’ve dealt with before.”

“Hmm, sounds like a rip-snortin’ party he’s throwing us.” Shepard sounded cheerful, but she was mentally preparing herself for a serious fight. Whatever Fist threw at her, she was going to bring her A-game.

They jumped out of the skycar the second it hissed to a stop and Vakarian looked strangely at her, “ _Rip snortin’_? Is this normal for humans or are you just insane?”

She gave him a very serious stare, “I’m not insane. Anderson had me tested.” And then she bounded past him, but not before she heard him mutter, “Is she serious?” in a very concerned voice to Nihlus. She smirked, but she ignored them. The odds were that this was going to be close quarters; she couldn’t use bombs or poisons without harming her own people, so omni-blades and pistols it was.

Her pistol was already in her hand when they pulled up to a stop outside of the suspiciously silent club. She turned to the others, “Stay low, I’ll go in first and confuse them, when I give the signal, come in guns blazing.”

Wrex grunted, “What’s the signal?”

“An explosion of course.” Shepard raised a brow as if it should have been obvious.

“Wait!” Garrus protested, “You can go in there alone! They’ll blow you to pieces.”

“Pfft.” She waved a dismissive hand, “They’d have to find me first.” With that she triggered her cloak and enjoyed the look of surprise on their faces. Wrex recovered first with a disapproving shake of his head, “Damn underhanded Shepard. Good trick, but damn underhanded.”

“Say that again when it saves your life one day.” Shepard laughed. “See you on the other side.”

She slipped through the door and came-face-to-face with about twenty battle rifles aimed in her direction. “What the fuck?” Came a bewildered shout, “There’s nothing there!”

_No fucking duh Captain Obvious_. Shepard’s footsteps only held the suggestion of sound as she moved to the back of the room. She sidled up next to a turian mercenary holding a rifle with an easy, yet experienced hold. This was no rookie, probably ex-military seeing as how he was completely relaxed yet completely focused at the same time. It was an underhanded move, she admitted as she leveled her pistol at his head, but she was a spy, underhanded was how she survived. She pulled the trigger and the merc keeled over. The other mercenaries cursed and whipped around to stare at their dead companion.

“Fuck,” a krogan off to the side yelled, “the bastard’s cloaked!”

“Look for a shimmer!”

Shepard grinned darkly. They wouldn’t see a glimmer, she’d designed this cloaking device herself and it was definitely not to specs. Two more mercs fell to her pistol before they all decided that searching for her wasn’t working and just opened fire. Only she wasn’t there anymore.

_Bang!_ A merc on top of the dancing platform above the bar tumbled limply from his perch.

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_ The krogan grasped at a hole that had sprouted in the unprotected flesh of his throat. Having a redundant set of lungs wasn’t going to help him if all four were collapsing as he drowned in his own blood.

The mercs all had their backs turned to the door and they were gradually leaving the back of the room, trying to widen their range with their spray-and-pray tactics. _Perfect._ Shepard, who was on top of the bar’s dancing platform at this point, pulled a simple flash-bang grenade from her belt and tossed it into the midst of the mercs. She closed her eyes against the glare of the light as it exploded, the aural dampeners she placed in her ears muting the head-splitting noise.

And, true to the plan, Nihlus, Wrex, and Vakarian came bursting through the door. Nihlus had his battle rifle coughing shorts bursts of death into the group while Wrex was just blasting mercs away with his biotics and his shotgun. Vakarian had gone to one knee and was taking potshots with his pistol, dropping mercs with headshots. She hummed with appreciation, he almost rivaled her own skill at making outrageous shots. Her pistol bucked in her hand and a man fell to a bullet that had exited through his open mouth. She grinned to herself. _Almost._

“You can come out now Commander.” Nihlus called.

She uncloaked and snickered down at them, “And you said they’d blow me apart. Catch!” Shepard jumped from the platform with a whoop and into Vakarian’s arms. He cursed when he caught her, stumbling back into Wrex’s steadying hand.

“Gotta love surprise trust exercises!” Shepard chirped as she pushed away from him. He just laughed and rolled his shoulders, “I’m going to feel that one tomorrow.”

Nihlus’ mandibles were flush to his face and he eyed her with a nameless, critical emotion in his green eyes. “Fist should be in the back rooms,” he said, his modulating voice clipped, “we should move on before he has time to escape.”

Shepard winked at him as she walked past, but his eyes only narrowed, his grip tightening on his rifle. The doors at the back of the club opened to reveal the storage rooms, where two human workers stood, pistols clutched in shaking hands.

“D-don’t come any farther!” One stuttered.

She raised a brow, these guys were innocents that had been given guns and told to die.  She crossed her arms, one hip cocked, “You guys really feel like dying for a douche cake like Fist?”

The other man shook his head and lowered his pistol, “Hell no. I quit.” He dropped the gun and ran past them, followed by his coworker.

Shepard moved to open the doors to Fist’s office, but she was stopped by what looked like a biometric locking system, she considered using her omnitool to crack it, she needed the practice, but they were in a hurry. “Fuck it.” She shrugged and shot the lock until it blew up in sparks and the door clicked open. Bullets immediately started whizzing past her face and she jerked back.

There were two heavily shielded automated sentries in the corner of the room behind Fist’s desk, and then there was Fist himself, armed with a gnarly looking battle rifle. Shepard ducked into the room, sliding into place behind some sort of marble elcor statue. She got a closer look at it when she was pressed up against it. _Jesus Christ on a cracker, that’s disgusting!_ Shepard reeled away from the marble rendering of elcor doing dirty things, but had to hide behind it again when bullets dimpled the floor on either side of her. _Ugh, just don’t look up Shepard._ Don’t _look up._

“Vakarian! After me!” Shepard loaded up an overload to use against the left turret. As its shields sparked and failed, Vakarian destroyed it with a burst of rifle fire, sending it up in flames.

“I don’t suppose you have an overload do you?” She called out.

“Of course I d- Oh _Spirits…_ that _cannot_ be unseen.”

Shepard grimaced, “You can join me in therapy later. Overload the other turret. Nihlus if you would?”

He didn’t answer, but since the turret blew up shortly after its shields failed, she figured he got the message.

Fist shouted from behind his desk, “What do you want? If it’s money, I’ll give you more than you’ve seen in your life.”

Shepard heaved herself away from the statue and put as much space between her and it as she could. “Give us the quarian Fist.”

“The quarian? What quari-” He gulped, finding himself staring down the hot barrel of Shepard’s pistol. He swallowed again, tittering nervously, “Oh _that_ quarian. Aha ha, they all look the same in those suits, but I know which one you’re talking about. She’s being ambushed in the alley behind the club.”

“Why.” Shepard pushed the pistol into his face and watched the sweat bead on his forehead.

“She came to me, said she had some dirt on Saren, wanted to meet with the Shadow Broker to make an exchange, her info for his protection. I told her I could arrange the trade, but she demanded to see the Broker herself.” He shook his head at the absurdity of it, “No one meets the Broker face to face. I’ve worked for him for years and I’ve never even heard his voice. Anyway, I owe Saren a big favor and I told her I’d arranged a meeting. By my guess, the boys have found her by now.”

Shepard stepped back with disgust. This man was a filthy coward. He looked up, his eyes darting, “Now if you would-” his head exploded in a shower of blood, and brain, and bone.

Shepard leapt back with a curse and rounded on Wrex, who was holding the smoking gun, literally. “What the fuck Wrex?” She snapped, coming toe-to-toe with him, anger coursing through her.

He only stared unconcernedly back at her, “I was contracted to kill Fist.”

_Well, he has a point_. It didn’t mean that she was fine with him blowing off Fist’s head before she was done with him. She growled. Being truly threatening at five foot four was difficult, but even Wrex backed down, unable to hold her glare. Satisfied, she stepped back, “Next time wait until I’m done. I may still have questions that need answered and I can’t very well do that if his cerebral cortex is smeared across the wall.”

She rushed from the room, taking only a moment to swipe an important looking memory core from his desk, before booking it out of the club. That quarian could be dead right now for all she knew, taking what little evidence she had against Saren with her to the grave. Dread lent wings to her feet and she skidded around the corner into the mouth of the alley, her omni-blades at the ready.

“Where is the Shadow Broker?” The voice was female and heavily accented. The quarian.

Shepard came into view in time to see a male turian with dark skin sidle closer to the female with a leer. They were surrounded by five other mercenaries, two salarians, another turian, a human, and a batarian.

“Oh he’ll be here sweetheart.” He went to caress the quarian’s shoulder, looking her over hungrily.

And that was when Shepard saw red. She barreled into the alley, taking the turian’s head with a swipe of her blade. The quarian was quick on the uptake and she whirled away, pulling a shotgun on a nearby salarian. Shepard was a dervish and her omni-blades spun as she slashed through the barrel of a rifle and then the chest of the batarian wielding it. The human in front of her keeled over backwards, a neat hole smoking faintly in the middle of his forehead. The cavalry had arrived and the last two mercenaries went down before they could look up at the newcomers.

“Are you ok?” Shepard disengaged her blades and turned to the quarian.

She nodded, “Yes. I have no injuries and my suit hasn’t been breached. Thank you for helping me, my name-

“Introductions will have to wait,” Wrex cut in with a rumble, “we have company.”

Sure enough, mercs were pouring into the alleyway after them.

“Come on,” shouted the quarian, running for the opposite end of the alley, “there’s skycars parked over here!”

They dashed after her and Shepard took a moment to pull a small capsule out of her “bag of tricks” as Joker called it and chunked it behind her. The capsule cracked, and a massive explosion burst through the alley, whipping her hair around her face and pushing her forward with the concussion. Grim satisfaction filled her. Nothing quite like violent chemical reactions to hasten an escape.

Vakarian yanked the pilot’s door open, causing Shepard to pout slightly, but she slid across the hood of the Skycar and threw herself into the front passenger seat, leaving the quarian and Nihlus to squeeze into the back with Wrex, which they somehow managed.

“Go! Go! Go!” Shepard shouted. Her bomb hadn’t taken out all of the mercs, and enough of them were coming out of the alley to have her worried. The skycar lurched sluggishly into the air and Vakarian wheeled her out of the alley just as the first mercs were reaching the four other cars waiting below them.

And that’s how they became embroiled in a high speed chase through the Citadel.

“Turn there!” Shepard pointed down at a narrow alley, but Vakarian shook his head.

“A skycar would never fit through there.”

Shepard frowned, “Of course it would! And it would crash at least one of those bastards.”

As if to punctate her point, a skycar rammed into them from behind. “Ok, take this next left!”

Vakarian gave an irritated little warble, “There’s nothing that way but some old warehouses. If we want to lose them we have to take Anadam through to 75th.”

“Oh Jesus GOD, save me from stubborn fucking _males_!” Shepard shouted, exasperated, “Move Over!”

She wrenched herself out of the passenger seat and pushed Vakarian’s hands from the controls. “What are you doing?!” He barked, “You’re going to get us all killed you crazy, _eataki,_ fool!”

Shepard jerked the skycar into a hairpin left turn, “I told you,” she hooted, “Anderson had me tested! And I oughta wash your mouth out with soap mister!” She settled uncomfortably in his lap as she took control of the skycar. They went into a dive, ducking under the roofline of the buildings below. She weaved in and out of the tallest offices with inhuman speed, eliciting a steady stream of foul words from Nihlus.

Vakarian bumped her elbow, shifting in the seat, Shepard slapped at him distractedly, “Quit squirming.”

Two tall buildings loomed up in front of her and she bared her teeth in a feral grin, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you weren’t before, buckle up!”

“What are you…” Vakarian muttered, then he looked around her and his eyes widened, “It won’t fit!”

“If there’s a will there’s a way!” Shepard cackled before turning the skycar on its side and squipping through the narrow space between the buildings. The roof of the vehicle screeched as it scraped along the metal side of the skyscraper and then they were through. A muffled explosion heralded the fate of one or more of the cars behind them.

“One down, three to go!” Shepard wrenched on the controls, sending the skycar careening around another building.

“ _Keelah_ ,” the quarian groaned from the back seat, “I think I’m going to be sick…”

“How does that even work?” Wrex looked at her curiously, “Does it just recycle?”

“No,” she moaned, “it comes out through an exit in my helmet that opens long enough to dump it.”

Wrex scooched closer to the window, which was no mean feat seeing as how there was no room left to move. “Keep it on that side then. Yak on the turian.”

Shepard giggled, executing another hairpin turn and flying beneath another skycar. “So,” she started conversationally before she rammed the bottom of the skycar above them, sending it reeling away into the side of another building, “what is your name?”

“Tali,” she burped and groaned, “Tali’Zorah nar Rayya. You know, if you land, I think I could make it on my own.”

Shepard laughed, “No, no! It’s no problem! I’ve got you covered kid.”

A merc skycar suddenly rose up in front of them. “Hold on to your hats!” Shepard turned off the skycar and they plummeted straight down. She whooped with success as the last two skycars crashed into each other. Strong hands gripped her around the waist as she started to float off into the cabin and kept her in place. “Thank’ee very much sir.” She tossed the comment over her shoulder, to which Vakarian only grunted, sounding a bit strangled.

“SHEPARD! TURN THE DAMN CAR BACK ON!” Nihlus bellowed.

She bashed the control panel and the skycar roared back to life and they rocketed away, only feet above the ground. The danger past, she reluctantly gave the controls back to Vakarian, sliding from his lap back into her own seat. His three-fingered hands shook as he gripped them. Shepard leaned over the seat to address Tali.

Everyone in the back looked ill. Except for Wrex, he looked like he was taking a nap.

“So,” Shepard smiled brightly at the nauseous quarian, “what dirt did you dig up on our dear old Saren?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just can't do it! *sobs dramatically*   
> I just can't keep from posting all of the chapters! I'm a failure as a steady updater! Unless my plan is to be as unpredictable as possible? If that's the case, I'm doing a pretty good job so far!


	10. The Engineer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tali presents her evidence and Shepard wants to punch Udina in the throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What up ya'll! So I must sing the praises of the wonderful lillilah for her help with this chapter. Seriously, having someone to catch your stupid editing mistakes and tangled logic works wonders for the little gremlins in my brain. When they get excited, they get confused, so thanks again lillilah for straightening them out!  
> Ok my dears, enjoy!

* * *

“Shoot-outs in public space, over forty dead mercenaries that you just left lying in the streets, not to mention your little “drag race” in the Wards that racked up over thirty-thousand credits in damages,” Udina barely paused for breath, his face purpling, “and for what? The off chance that this _quarian,_ ” he said the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth, “just _might_ have enough evidence on Saren to make a difference? After this, it won’t matter if you have a spoken confession from Saren himself, they’ll have you arrested immediately!”

Shepard examined her nails, her face impassive. She was tamping down her anger at the way he had blatantly disrespected the quarians as a species, and if she was going to get anywhere with this ass clown, she needed to have a somewhat civil tongue in her head, not that, that had ever helped her much. Still, it wouldn’t help if she throttled him before they got any actual work done.

“ _Tali’Zorah nar Rayya_ actually has a spoken confession from Saren himself, if you’d care to have a listen.” Shepard smirked at the struggle on Udina’s face as he struggled to school his expression into one of contrite supplication when he turned to Tali.

His snake’s mouth twisted into the facsimile of a smile, “Miss nar Rayya, would you present this evidence?”

Tali nodded and stepped forward. Shepard couldn’t really tell through Tali’s helmet, but she would swear that she was wearing the most satisfied smile because of Udina’s obvious discomfort. Shepard smirked in approval, she was definitely going to like this girl.

Tali pulled up her omnitool with slender, practiced fingers, and Saren’s voice boomed angrily through Udina’s office, Anderson visibly tensed at the sound, his face drawing into tight lines, “ _Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit._ ”

“How did you come by this recording?” Udina looked sharply at Tali, as if suspecting her of being a spy.

Tali shrugged, “When I left the Flotilla for my Pilgrimage, the rite of passage into adulthood for my people, I heard that the Geth had come out of the Veil. They haven’t been outside of the Veil since they drove my people into exile, and I was curious, so I tracked down a patrol and waited till one became separated and I removed its memory core.” The blue light on the mouthpiece of Tali’s helmet blinked rapidly as she spoke, “What I wasn’t prepared for was that the rest of the patrol knew the second I took the other one offline and I had to leave everything behind when they attacked me, but by then I’d already saved the sound bite I was able to retrieve from the core.”

Udina’s perpetual scowl darkened with suspicion, “The Geth fry their memory cores when they die. How did _you_ manage to get your hands on it?”

“The quarians created the Geth.” Tali scoffed, “If you work fast enough, bypassing their self defense mechanisms will keep most of the core intact.”

“More importantly, what is this “Conduit” that Saren is looking for?” Anderson pulled Udina’s attention away from interrogating Tali, for which Shepard was grateful, she was _this_ close to punching Udina in the mouth.

Udina made his best “thinking face,” which looked a little painful to her, and began to pace, “Hmmm, if he used the beacon to find it, it could be some sort of Prothean weapon…”

“Actually,” Tali gestured to her omnitool, “there’s more.”

They all quieted as the recording continued to play. “ _The Beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit_.” A dark, female voice responded to Saren’s statement, “ _And one step closer to the return of the Reapers._ ”

Shepard felt a spurt of dreadful recognition, she _knew_ that name. _Reapers_. The very sound of it made her shudder.

“I don’t recognize that voice,” Udina frowned, “and I don’t know what these “Reapers” are.”

Tali closed her omnitool, “From the information I’d pulled from the memory core, it seems that the Reapers were a hyper advanced race of machines that existed fifty-thousand years ago. The Geth worship them as Gods, as much as a geth can worship anything, but the Geth believe that the Reapers are responsible for the total annihilation of the Protheans. They believe that the Reapers hunted them to extinction and then just vanished, erasing any trace of themselves in the galaxy. And they believe Saren knows how to bring them back. It’s why they follow him, to them he’s some sort of prophet.”

Flashes of red played through Shepard’s mind, like snippets of a poorly recorded vid projected onto the backs of her eyes. The screams, the burning planets, the giant machines striding like gods of death across cities on fire, the vision that she’d received from the beacon, those were the last moments of the Protheans…

“… far fetched.” Udina was saying.

“No,” Shepard clenched her teeth until her jaws hurt, trying to shut the nightmare images back into their box, “it’s the truth. The beacon on Eden Prime showed me these enormous machines completely obliterating entire planets. It _must_ have shown me the Reapers killing the Protheans.”

Alenko shifted nervously behind her, “If that’s true, then the Council needs to know about this. If the Reapers were able to destroy a species as powerful as the Protheans, what could they do to us?”

Udina made a dismissive noise and crossed his arms, “Regardless of what we tell the Council, the problem remains that if _Commander_ Shepard leaves this room, she’ll be arrested on sight.”

“I believe I can do something about that,” Vakarian stepped forward, shooting a grin over his shoulder at Shepard, “I seem to remember that I promised to help the Commander in return for saving my life.”

Shepard chuckled, “Then this makes us square Officer Vakarian.”

Udina gave the turian a cursory look and turned away, “Just be ready for tomorrow. I want you at the Citadel Towers _early_ this time Shepard,” he moved behind his desk and sat, looking like a snooty little lord, “this hearing is all about you after all. Something you enjoy, no doubt.”

He promptly ignored them, shuffling papers on his desk, imbuing the motion with more self-importance than Shepard thought possible. It was an obvious dismissal. When she turned to leave his office, however, she _stumbled_ and somehow managed to kick the corner of Udina’s desk, knocking over several items and mussing up the fussy order to his belongings.

“Oops.” She shrugged innocently under his angry glare, and flounced out of the room, feeling satisfied with her childish revenge. It’s really not childish if it’s premeditated right?

* * *

 

With the meeting adjourned, everyone went their separate ways. Williams and Alenko had slunk off together, presumably for drinks. Shepard smiled slightly, since picking Ashley up on Eden Prime, Kaiden had been loitering around the hangar where Ashley had settled in, no big surprise there, she _was_ a very attractive marine. Of course she could also beat most of the men on the ship at arm wrestling, though she hadn’t yet beaten Shepard herself.

Wrex had simply said, “Shepard,” in a gruff voice and stomped away. Whether that meant goodbye, see-you-later, I-hate-you, or buy-me-a-pony, Shepard had no clue, but she had a feeling he’d be back at some point. Vakarian had given her a jaunty little wave and walked off with purpose, probably to go clear her name with C-Sec. She winced slightly, she really had done a lot of property damage, at least one of those buildings was going to be condemned. She didn’t even see Nihlus leave, which was slightly creepy, she wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of sudden disappearances. That was mostly her thing.

The sigh started at her feet and by the time it whooshed out of her, she was utterly exhausted and sore from head to toe. It felt like she’d been kickboxing with an armored mech for the better part of four days, which was how she usually felt, so not much surprise there. With nothing left to do, she’d had her fill of heroics for the day and she felt as useless as an elcor mime, she was just going to head back to the Normandy for a well-deserved nap.

“Um, Commander Shepard?” Tali said nervously.

Shepard turned with some surprise, she’d assumed the quiet quarian had already left, but Tali was standing there, wringing her hands. “Well spit it out,” she said tiredly, but not unkindly, “we only have the rest of the day, and I for one want a nap.”

Tali giggled slightly, “Can I come with you?”

Shepard raised a brow and Tali spluttered, waving her hands wildly, “N-not to sleep! I meant to catch Saren. Can I join your crew when you go to catch Saren?”

“Walk with me and we’ll talk about it.” Shepard strode away from Udina’s office, Tali beside her. She looked at her curiously as they went down the stairs, “I thought you were on your Pilgrimage?”

Tali shrugged, “Chasing down a mad-man intent on bringing back the synthetic equivalent of gods, who are, in turn, intent on wiping out all organic life, seems like the kind of thing that I can put my Pilgrimage on hold for.”

“Touché,” Shepard chuckled, “when you put it that way, it’s hard to argue with, but you do realize that the Council may never send us after him.”

“You can’t really believe that can you?” Tali scoffed, “After they hear what I found? And what the beacon showed you? They’d _have_ to send someone after him!”

Shepard shook her head, this girl had no idea. “At most, they’ll revoke his Spectre status, that’s all we can really hope for. There’s no way they’ll accept my report of the visions as accurate,” her mouth twisted into a wry smile, “I’m not a reliable source.”

Passing through the Embassy Lobby, Shepard thought about Tali’s request. Having her aboard the Normandy wouldn’t be a bad idea, quarians were renowned as a species that produced the best engineers, and Tali had already proven herself to be quick, smart, and resourceful. She’d ask Adams if he could find some way to integrate Tali into their engineering crew; Chase, Felawa, and Crosby could use the competition.

She stopped by the transit terminal, chuckling slightly at the reluctance in Tali’s body language as she reached for the pilot’s door on the skycar. “Don’t worry,” she winked, “I’m putting it on auto-pilot.”

The tension melted from Tali’s shoulders and she heaved a relieved sigh, the air making her voice modulator buzz, “ _Keelah se’lai…_ ”

Shepard snorted, “Don’t be so insulting. I didn’t crash us did I?”

“I had no idea that a skycar could do that.” Tali shook her head as she got into the passenger seat, “And I’m pretty sure that they aren’t meant to make some of the maneuvers you were doing. Honestly, I’m surprised that it didn’t fall apart when we landed.”

She smiled as Tali began to estimate the number of g-forces it would theoretically take to make a skycar break in half and leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes. Shepard was right, she was definitely going to like this one. She cracked open an eye to look at the quarian, who was still going strong, this time questioning the physics of the pit maneuver she’d used to send one of the merc cars into a building.

“… and with an isolated gravitational field, I mean, they’re _contragravitational,_ it’s already improbable just based on the mechanics of mass effect field technology. How did bumping the underside of the other car send it spinning that out of control?”

“Tali?” Shepard closed her eye and relaxed again when the young quarian fell silent. She smirked, “Welcome to the Normandy.”

“Really?” Her voice brimmed with excitement.

“Really, really.” Shepard crossed her arms and shifted, finding a more comfortable spot in the seat, “We could use someone with your smarts in engineering and something tells me you’ll love the SR-1.”

She chuckled as an afterthought came to mind, “And the mass effect field propulsion drive on any standard X3M is on the underside of the carriage. I’m really good at mucking up technology.”

“ _Ohhhhh_! That makes perfect sense!” Tali excitedly dove into more theorizations, to which Shepard only smiled.

By the time they landed at the docking bay elevator in C-Sec headquarters, Tali was begging Shepard to fly the skycar again so she could test some of her theories. Shepard only yawned sleepily and trudged into the elevator, Tali trailing along behind her.

She rolled her shoulders, all of her muscles aching angrily. This always happened after the adrenaline wore off and it left her too exhausted to make witty exchanges or debate theoretical physics. If Shepard wasn’t so sure that Tali was effectively filling in sufficiently for both sides of the debate, she would’ve been afraid of hurting the girl’s feelings, as it was, she carried on well enough as the elevator crept upwards.

When the doors hissed open, Tali stuttered into silence, seeing the Normandy SR-1 in all her glory for the first time. “ _Keelah_ … she’s _beautiful_ …”

Shepard bumped Tali’s shoulder as she walked past, “She’s even better on the inside. Come on.”

Tali followed in awed silence as they entered through the outer door of the ship into the decon room.

“ _Stand by shore party_.” The Normandy’s VI spoke in a clichéd female voice, “ _Decontamination in progress_.”

Tali jumped as the ultraviolet irradiation scanner swept the room from front to back, effectively decontaminating the air from the Citadel and destroying any contaminants on their suits. Tali went up to investigate the source of the beam, practically quivering with excitement, “This would help the Flotilla so much! Our quarantines are definitely not this efficient. What is this anyway?”

Shepard yawned again, “I’ll introduce you to our Chief Engineer. Adams knows this ship inside and out, he helped design it after all.”

The inner door hissed open and the VI announced her arrival, “ _XO Shepard has the deck, Officer Pressly stands relieved.”_

It was hard to keep Tali focused as Shepard led her to the engine room, she almost had to bodily drag Tali through the CIC once she saw the interactive hologram of the Attican Traverse and the Terminus Systems. Tali’s enthusiasm over the smallest details of the ship was refreshing, though Shepard did note that Pressly’s dark scowl heralded future headaches. She’d deal with him later. Honestly, if you’re going to live in space, surrounded by different species, one would think you’d at least learn to get by without treating every one you meet as a potential enemy.

She ushered Tali downstairs, “Before I take you to see Adams, there is someone I’d like you to meet. If you’re going to be serving on the Normandy, you should probably meet the woman responsible for patching up its crew.”

Chakwas was standing outside of the med-bay doors, blowing gently on a steaming cup of tea, she looked up and blinked, but that was all the surprise she showed when taking in Shepard’s new companion. Shepard gestured to the young quarian, “Dr. Chakwas this is Tali’Zorah nar Rayya, she’ll be joining us on our little adventure. Tali, this is Dr. Karin Chakwas, she’ll be making sure none of us die on our little adventure.”

Karin made a rude sound in her throat, “The way you carry on, Shepard, I’m doing the best I can just making sure you don’t lose any limbs.” She smiled at Tali, “It will be interesting having a quarian aboard. I’m sure Shepard is about to whisk you away to engineering, but when you come back up for air, I’d be curious to know how I could make the med-bay more of a quarian friendly environment just in case you need medical attention while aboard.”

“I’d be happy to help.” Tali sounded surprised, “Not many doctors, human or otherwise, have ever bothered to ask me that.”

Chakwas raised a brow and sipped her tea. “Well it would behoove me to learn how to best take care of _all_ of my patients,” she set the cup back on the saucer with a clink, “it wouldn’t do much good if I dress your wounds only to have you die of infection due to some easily avoidable circumstance.”

Shepard sagged, a headache forming between her eyes. Chakwas glanced at her, her face impassive, but her eyes concerned. “Go on,” she smiled softly, “I’ve taken up enough of your time and I’m sure that Adams will want to meet your savant.”

Tali shrugged self-consciously, “I wouldn’t say that I’m a _savant_ …”

Chakwas chuckled and the med-bay doors slid open as she stepped into the room, she looked over her shoulder at Tali, “The Commander wouldn’t have brought you aboard if she thought you were anything less.” The doors hissed closed.

Shepard touched Tali’s shoulder, “Come on, engineering is this way.”

“Thank you Commander…” Tali’s voice was quiet, but Shepard could hear the smile in it.

“Call me Shepard,” she pulled the quarian into the elevator, “I’m pretty informal with anyone who’s survived a fire-fight _and_ a car chase with me.”

Shepard wavered on her feet, the pain in her muscles making her feel weak. She covered it up by leaning casually against the wall behind her and prayed that Tali hadn't noticed. She hadn't, she was busy inspecting every aspect of the elevator, mumbling something about tweaking the gears to make it faster. _Have at it kid, maybe we won’t have to spend a whole year just getting from one floor to another._

Tali bounced out of the elevator when it inched to a stop and it was Shepard who followed, pushing herself from the wall. She could see the glow of Tali’s eyes through the tinted shield of her enviro-suit helmet and they were wide and excited, reminding Shepard of a child in a candy store. She felt a momentary hint of unease, she was about to show some pretty experimental technology to a complete stranger, but Tali didn’t strike her as someone that would steal the Normandy’s specs and Shepard had always had a knack for reading people.

“Adams!” Shepard strode ahead of Tali into the engine room, raising her voice to be heard over the low thrum of the drive core.

Chief Engineer Greg Adams turned with a salute, “Commander!” He smiled and gripped her forearm in a more informal greeting, “Haven’t seen you around our humble abode in a while.”

At that moment, engineer Addison Chase walked past data pad in her hand. “Hey Shepard. You know that the quarian is having a heart attack right? Just checking.”

Shepard turned and Tali was indeed standing there, her helmet turned up to the pulsing light of the Tantilus Drive core, the tint darkened against the brightness, clutching a hand to her chest. She shared a grin with Adams, “This is Tali’Zorah nar Rayya. She’s a really smart cookie, you’ll like her.”

“Coming from you, that’s enough of a recommendation for me.” Adams stepped in front of the awe-struck quarian, startling her, “If you’re going to be working down here, I’ll need to go over a few rules.”

Tali nodded eagerly and Adams continued, “Rule number one…”

“Oh! Shepard! Sorry Adams.” Tali hurried to Shepard’s side, throwing a hasty apology over her shoulder to Adams who just sighed and shook his head. “Before you go, there’s something I forgot to mention. I didn’t think it was important at the time, but maybe you’ll have use for it. The Geth patrol that I was tracking? They were on the hunt as well. It seems they were going after something they called ‘The Blasphemer.’ Who or what this Blasphemer is, I don’t know, but I do know that they want this thing dead.”

Shepard shrugged, “Whatever it is, I hope they don’t find it. The Blasphemer sounds like a pain in the synthetic-ass, so it’s alright in my book. Thank you for mentioning this, it’ll probably come in handy later. Now you should probably get back to Adams,” she chuckled at the exasperated expression Adams was giving her from around Tali, “he’s famous for his ‘rules.’ You’ll want to take notes; there might be a test.”

Shepard excused herself and wandered back upstairs. It had been a long and potentially disastrous day. If she’d been late by even a minute, both Vakarian and Tali would have been killed, and that kind of stress was especially draining. She _had_ been reckless and irresponsible today, putting her team in more danger than necessary.

She shook her head to dispel the oncoming bout of self-flagellation. She didn’t have enough energy for that. Her bed was calling her and she finally slumped into her quarters. A glass of water on her desk caught her eye, and she saw that Karin had laid out her nest dose of xeno6. Shepard hesitated in the doorway, that little black pill both beckoned and repulsed her, but right now she was too tired to fight herself about it. She swept in and threw the pill into her mouth and swallowed, chasing it with a swig of water.

She sat on the bed and began pulling off her armor, sleep dragging at her limbs. By the time the last piece hit the floor, she was already asleep, the drug pulling her under into a dreamless fog.


	11. The Council's Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Council only reinforces Shepard's hate for politicians, but they finally get the ball rolling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya errybunny! Sorry about the long wait! I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to handle this chapter, but I hope I did it justice. As always, if you liked the chapter, leave a review. I love hearing from you guys!

* * *

Shepard woke with a start. Someone was in her room. Anyone watching her would have had no idea that she was awake. She kept her breathing even and her muscles and face relaxed, but every one of Shepard’s senses was in overdrive. _It’ll take approximately 1.5 seconds to grab the knife under my pillow and surprise the intruder. If I move now, I’ll have the upper hand._ A familiar scent wafted past her, reminiscent of sun-warmed sandstone and cedar. _Nihlus?_

She opened her eyes and looked around her spartan quarters in surprise. Nihlus was asleep in a chair he’d dragged over into the far corner of her room, his head resting at a painful looking angle against the lip of his cowl.

Her room was really nothing more than a glorified broom-closet, with room enough only for her small bed and the chair that Nihlus was sitting in, and even then, his knees were still touching the corner of her mattress. How he’d gotten his tall frame folded up like that in the tiny chair was beyond her, but more importantly, what was he doing here?

She opened her mouth to yell at him, but he twitched in his sleep and mumbled her name quietly. Her shout died on her lips and she squeezed her eyes shut. A warm glow settled in her chest and her cheeks flushed. Shepard wasn’t a vain person. Hell, other than making sure her tattoos always looked their best, she hardly gave a care as to the rest of her appearance. However, hearing him say her name, just a single muted word, thick with the innocence of sleep, filled her with a satisfaction she’d never felt and an overwhelming desire to preen.

The more she thought about that, the more flustered she became. Stupid turian, coming into her life and making her feel _things_. Shaking her head against the pillow, Shepard groaned and scrubbed her hands over her face, taking a deep breath to dislodge the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. There were important things to be done today and she didn’t need to be acting like a love-sick teenager in front of the Council. _And anyway, he’s in your room_ , she forced herself to get irritated, _without your permission!_

Shepard opened her eyes, but instead of the steel grey of her ceiling she saw bright green eyes staring at her with concern.

“What the fuck!” Her undignified squawk was followed by much shoving and cursing as she sat up and pushed Nihlus out of her face. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Shepard tried (unsuccessfully) to tame the mess that was her hair and glared. “Care to explain why you are in my quarters? Uninvited, I might add.”

He blinked, green eyes confused and slightly hurt. “Well I thought that I-”

“Nihlus,” she knew exactly where he’d been going with that, “just because you’ve stuck your tongue in my mouth does not mean that my room has a revolving door. You still need to _ask_ to enter the only private space I have on this ship.”

“Fair enough,” he chuckled. “You have a way with words Shepard.”

She accepted the backhanded compliment with a gracious nod of her head, though she regretted the tongue comment. Now she wanted to kiss him. _Damn it. Keep it together, Shepard. You’re mad at him, remember?_

He sighed and stood from his chair, making her little room feel that much smaller. Her eyes wandered across his broad shoulders and the lip of his cowl as he stretched. She cursed inwardly. It was getting more difficult to tell the difference between ‘mad’ and ‘hot’, and the scent that was so wholly _Nihlus_ wafting through the room with every movement wasn’t helping. She schooled her expression into one of consternation rather than craving as he turned around.

Nihlus hesitated slightly when he looked down at her, mandibles flaring questioningly. He cleared his throat and looked away again, “I was worried about you. Dr. Chakwas said that you were limping pretty heavily, so I came to check up on you.”

“And what,” Shepard raised her brow, “you just thought you’d make yourself comfortable?”

Nihlus looked at the chair ruefully, “Not exactly comfortable. I was just keeping an eye on you and I fell asleep.”

“No. None of that.” Shepard groaned, “Don’t watch me while I’m sleeping. That is just _disturbing_.”

“Now shoo!” She pointed to her door. “I have to mentally prepare myself to deal with politicians, who will use up whatever tact I’ve managed to build up during sleep, so I can’t waste any of it on you right now.”

“Ouch,” he said, but his mandibles spread in a grin as he took a step towards her door. Before he hit the control, he hesitated, twisting to face her, suddenly serious, “Are you okay, Shepard?”

She knew he was only concerned about her, but the fact he’d come into her room while she was asleep and then _stayed there_ was getting more irksome by the moment. Her voice was cool when she replied, “I’m fine.” She softened her face, attempting to sound playful when in reality she was starting to feel a familiar tension stiffen her shoulders. “Now go away before I’m forced to take corrective measures.”

He smirked. “Corrective measures?”

Nihlus didn’t step towards her. In fact, it didn’t even look like he had moved, but he was suddenly _looming_ over Shepard from the door, a predatory gleam in his eyes. Shepard’s mouth went dry, as did her well of sarcastic deflections. One mandible flicked up when she swallowed hard. The damn male knew _exactly_ what he was doing to her.

“I’d certainly hate to face your wrath, so I’ll leave.” He leaned back again, and she breathed a sigh of relief as he turned from her.

He spun back around with a step towards her and Shepard, finding herself suddenly face to face with him, jerked back. He leaned in closer. “You know,” his voice was a husky rumble, “it’s moments like these that make me _very_ happy that we’re not allergic to each other.”

“W-why is that?” Shepard fisted the sheets in her hands and tried to take an even breath. She was drowning in burning green eyes.

He leaned in slowly until Shepard was pretty sure she was hyperventilating. His breath tickled on her neck and she felt the flutter of his mandible against her cheek, “Because I like the way you _taste_.”

Oh that was _it_! Shepard pushed away and jumped out of the bed with a slightly hysterical, breathless laugh. “Now you really need to go before I do something regrettable, like make us both very late for this hearing.”

The way that Nihlus rolled his shoulders and stepped toward her, the hungry edge to his expression turning ravenous, made it obvious that he couldn’t care less about the damn Council. For a second, Shepard wondered what would happen if they just failed to show up, but common sense and an instinct for self-preservation won over the lusty thoughts swirling through her muddled brain. _Damn, that whole ‘tongue in my mouth’ comment really came back to bite me in the ass. I wouldn’t mind it if he bit my ass. Wait! What am I thinking?! Shit! Ok, think of something, anything, other than the way he’s looking at you right now. Um, Anderson, Udina, Thresher Maws, Krogan ballet, Fist’s elcor statue…_

“Nihlus,” Shepard barked, backing away, “I mean it. Leave.”

Nihlus blinked at the change in her voice and stopped stalking across the room after her. Seeing him hesitate, Shepard pushed her advantage. “I was serious when I said I don’t have enough tact for this. I need to prepare.” The heat in the room was stifling, or maybe that was just her. She felt sweat trickle down the small of her back.

Nihlus straightened with a snort, “Politicians are going to be the death of me. Fine. Do your ‘preparations,’ Shepard. I’ll be waiting in the mess. I’m escorting you to the Tower.”

He gave her one last burning look, the verdant green of his gaze making her knees feel like jelly, and then he swept from the room, taking the air with him. Shepard puffed her cheeks in a steadying breath when the door closed. That had been pretty heavy for first thing in the morning. She really wasn’t looking forward to when this thing between them blew up in their faces, and she was too much of a pessimist to believe that it wouldn’t.

Now, for the politicians... Her teeth clenched. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she said that she would need every scrap of patience and tact she possessed to get through the day. She forced her encounter with Nihlus to the back of her mind to stew on it later and, feeling as though she was heading to her own boring demise, she rose from her bed and began to don her armor, both physical and mental.

If yesterday was anything to go by, she would need that armor, and soon.

 

* * *

 

If the smell of bullshit wasn’t permeating the air, Shepard might’ve thought the Citadel Tower was actually a beautiful place. It was all soaring ceilings and modern, graceful lines that wrapped around garden boxes of verdant lush greenery, making the necessity of the raised dais for the Council seats seem like an afterthought. As it was, there were too many politicians being politicians for her tastes, and having numerous people on the upper levels watching her being humiliated by the most powerful beings in Council Space was just _lovely_.

“Commander Shepard,” Councilor Tevros stared down at her with the vague superiority that all Asari Matrons wore like a badge of honor, “I thank you on behalf of the Council and the Spectres for uncovering Saren’s heinous crime and Matriarch Benezia’s duplicity in his actions.”

_I feel a “but” coming on here_.

The asari Councilor’s lips thinned. “But-”

_There she blows!_

“- we cannot accept these ‘visions’ of yours as credible substantiations to your claims of this so-called ‘Reaper invasion.’ It is far more likely that Saren is simply using these ‘God’ figures as a way to control the Geth.”

Shepard sighed, feeling a headache squeezing its way behind her eyes like an unwelcome guest. They had been arguing about this for _hours_. Tali and her damning evidence against Saren had sparked the debate of the ages, and frankly, Shepard was getting really tired of repeating herself. “Councilor, you can’t fool a synthetic based lifeform with religious zealotry. I myself have looked over the information that Tali’Zora nar Rayya risked so much to retrieve. The Geth don’t look to the Reapers as allegorical figureheads. They see them as factual, existing machines, and they believe that these machines implemented the galaxy-wide destruction of all advanced organic life that wiped out the Protheans. Much like what I witnessed in the beacon.”

Valern shifted, his projection flaring just a bit brighter, “Did anyone else ‘witness’ this information you say was stored in the beacon? No, just you Commander Shepard, so can you understand why we hesitate to take your word for it? All we truly know is that Saren and Matriarch Benezia are on the hunt for the “Conduit,” a piece of technology that we do not know for certain the purpose of. You believe Benezia’s assertion that this Conduit is the key to bringing back the Reapers? What does that mean to this Council? The Reapers, if they ever existed, were the supposed destroyers of the Prothean Empire, which fell over fifty-thousand years ago. No machine can stay functioning for that long and not leave traces of itself for the rest of the galaxy to find. So you simply want us to believe you when you tell us that these _Reapers_ are just going to reappear and that Saren is going to be the one to bring them back. No, the Reapers are simply a convenient myth that Saren is extorting to control the geth.”

“Councilor Valern…” Councilor Sparatus leveled a serious look at the brash Salarian Councilor, but Valern ignored the stern turian.

The salarian straightened with a haughty sneer, “We cannot make decisions that will affect whole systems because of the hallucinations of one clinically disturbed human solider.”

Shepard’s teeth clenched as a gasp went around the room. The whispers in the balcony were damning. ‘ _She’s clinical? What’s a person like that doing in the Alliance?’ ‘Wait, aren’t there rules against this sort of thing?’ ‘Huh, humans must be desperate if they’re letting the weak handle their problems.’_

She had known that this was going to come up. If she ever again ran into the doctor that had written up that report on her after they’d scraped her off of Akuze, she was going to rip his face off with a potato peeler. Then he’d really see what “mentally unstable” looked like. Shepard tried to breathe evenly, but the resentment stirring in her chest made it difficult. She had spent one week, _one week_ , in the psych ward and that blemish would forever remain on her record, not that it was spotless anyway. It was another piece of fodder to be used against her when she needed to be discredited. _Who are you going to believe, me or the crazy person?_ Just a barrel of laughs.

“I can personally vouch for Shepard’s mental acuity.” Nihlus stepped forward, his voice was respectful, but there was enough anger in his subvocals that even those not skilled in decoding turian vocalizations could tell that he was a breath away from doing or saying something regrettable. “I’ve yet to meet another soldier who can think on their feet as quickly as the Commander, or one who matches her tactical leadership abilities.”

Sparatus rumbled deep in his throat, a sure sign that the older turian felt challenged by the anger in Nihlus’ subvocals, and his eyes narrowed, “You yourself said that Commander Shepard was ‘reckless’ and prone to making decisions too quickly.”

Shepard looked over at the Spectre who was attempting, rather poorly, to defend her, now against his own report. _Ridiculous male_. He was practically bristling, but so was Anderson. Udina wasn’t saying much, but then, if someone was Shepard bashing, he wasn’t going to get in the way of that. He might score them for creativity and originality, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to stop it or sully himself by joining in. Vakarian looked a little horrified, so did Tali, poor kid, and Kaiden had a tight hold on Ashley’s elbow. Ashley looked almost apoplectic. Shepard couldn’t help a little chuckle when she spotted the krogan. If she wasn’t mistaken, Wrex was snoozing, leaning against a pillar on the balcony.

“Is there something humorous about these proceedings Commander?” Tevros’ cool voice cut through the arguing male voices like a breeze through smoke.

Shepard smirked, giving Tevros an insolent roll of her eyes, “Nothing really, other than the fact that everyone is so taken by whether or not I’m insane, that nobody has bothered to think ‘what shall we do about Saren now.’ Honestly, the public might wonder what the Council’s priorities are: discredit one human soldier or deal with a genocidal traitor responsible for billions of credits worth of damage and death, who is currently leading a synthetic army that loathes all organic life with the intent of bringing back an ancient race of sentient machines responsible for wiping out all advanced life in the galaxy, and who is also aided by one of the most respected Matriarchs of Asari society. So no,” Shepard popped her shoulders up in a shrug, “I don’t find the proceedings ‘humorous.’ I find the thought of you all being raked through the mud by the Citadel Collective ‘humorous’ and don’t worry, Councilor Tevros, brown goes really well with blue.”

Silence fell over the Presidium and Shepard could almost hear Anderson’s blood pressure spike. Tevros flushed angrily, the pale blue of her cheeks turning a ruddy purple, and Ashley’s barely smothered snort only made Tevros’ scowl darken further.

_Did she just insult one of the most powerful and influential Asari Matrons in Council Space? Why yes, yes, she did, and she’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant that the Council would finally get to the point of this farce._

Udina, bless his sticky, sullied soul, stepped in before Tevros could get one word through her pale, bloodless lips. “Despite Commander Shepard’s crass and regrettable attitude,” he spared her a glance that silently equated her with the icky things he watched plebeians wade through, “an attitude that is beneath her standing as an Alliance officer, her question is a valid one. What is the Council going to do about Saren, the Geth, and this Matriarch Benezia? Humanity is owed reparations for Saren’s destruction of Eden Prime, and I for one will see the Council take responsibility for that.”

Sparatus looked relieved that Udina had taken control of the situation, which was certainly saying something; it was widely known that the Council couldn’t stand the pushy, vociferous human Ambassador. “And the Council _will_ take responsibility for the rebuilding of Eden Prime and for the reparations to any surviving families or closest living relatives of the civilians injured or killed in the attack.”

“As for Saren,” Tevros spoke up, her voice icy, “we have stripped his Spectre status from him. He no longer has access to Spectre resources, nor can he use Spectre influence to hide his activities.”

Nihlus stepped up next to Shepard with his arms crossed. He didn’t look at her, but his elbow brushed her arm in a silent show of support. “Are you going to bring him in?”

He’d addressed the question to Sparatus, but Valern answered, a sneer in his voice. “Saren fled into the Attican Traverse and his whereabouts are unknown at this time.”

Shepard felt a rock settle in the pit of her stomach. Saren was loose? Then he was one step closer to finding the Conduit, to resurrecting the Reapers, but who was going to stop him? The Council had no power in the Traverse. It was a no man’s land between Citadel Space and the criminally controlled Terminus Systems.

“Why was he never brought in? Even yesterday, why was he not physically present for a hearing in which he was accused of heinous war crimes?” Anderson’s quiet voice shook with fury as he took his place next to Udina. “What is this Council playing at? If he was innocent of these crimes, no harm would have been done by having him brought to the Citadel. Your inaction means that a dangerous sociopath in control of an enormous synthetic army, bent on the destruction of all sentient organic life, was just allowed to wander free into a system where you have no influence. If I was a suspicious man, I would find this highly suspect, and I might accuse this Council of being complicit with Saren’s actions.”

“Captain Anderson, you go too far.” Valern looked livid. “To accuse this Council of aiding a known traitor is akin to treason, and we will have you removed from these proceedings.”

Shepard tensed. If the Councilor did call in the guards to take Anderson, she wasn’t sure what would happen. As angry as Anderson was, she wouldn’t put it past him to resist, and if he did, those guards wouldn’t stand a chance. If it came down to a brawl in the middle of Council Chambers, she knew exactly who she’d throw her weight behind, and it sure as hell wasn’t Udina.

Udina strode forward as far as he could without falling off of the raised platform in front of the Councilors, getting their attention, “As far as I’m concerned, the Captain is right. From all angles, this looks very bad for the Council indeed. He has fled into the Traverse, so send ships after him now. Humanity will have him answer for his crimes.”

“And how do you suppose a fleet is going to track down one man?” Valern asked scornfully.

Udina ground his teeth together, his voice tight. “A fleet could keep the geth from attacking other settlements or colonies, and they could restrict Saren’s movements.”

Sparatus sighed. “If we send a fleet after Saren, it will spark a war with the Terminus Systems.”

“So just send one ship.” Shepard hummed, an idea forming. “In fact, send a ship with stealth capabilities that can follow him as far into the Attican Traverse as he dares to go.”

Nihlus looked down at her, understanding dawning in his gaze. His mandibles quirked up into a grin. “Yes, a single ship will draw no attention, especially if it’s just a small frigate flying Alliance colors. Everyone knows that the humans are trying to colonize everywhere.”

Udina shot Nihlus a dirty look, but faced the Council with a determined gleam in his eyes. “Send the Commander. She will be able to get the job done. You’ve seen her record. That’s why you accepted her as a Spectre candidate, isn’t it? Let her prove herself now.” He crossed his arms and the corners of his lips lifted in a barely perceptible smile. His snake eyes narrowed. “Don’t pass up this chance to further the reach of your influence into the Traverse. If you send one of your own fabled agents after this rogue former Spectre, humanity will be appeased, and every other Citadel race, especially the ones watching this incident, will see that you are serious about apprehending this traitor.”

Shepard was only mildly surprised that Udina was singing her praises, it benefited him after all, but he’d peaked her curiosity. He had caught on quickly to her little plan and was spinning it to look like his idea, which was fine with her as long as it worked. But, why was he pushing the Spectre angle so hard?

Sparatus’ projection crossed its arms, looking like he was deep in thought considering Udina’s proposal. He shared a look with Councilor Tevros and Valern and eyed Shepard with bold skepticism. “While sending the Commander would be easier and safer than mobilizing the Fleet, the Council has no assurance that she will even be able to reach Saren, much less apprehend him. Nor are we sure that an Alliance soldier will willingly turn him over to Council sanctioned authorities.”

So, in other words, the Council was afraid of not being able to control her actions. Shepard snarled inwardly. She really hated these people. Sparatus made eye contact with her and she bared her throat, an old turian gesture that showed that she didn’t see him as a threat. It was a really subtle way of telling him that she didn’t even find him worth the time or the effort of respecting him as an adversary. She disguised the insult under the pretense of cracking her neck, but the way Sparatus’ mandibles were tight to his face showed that he’d gotten the message loud and clear.

Udina either ignored or missed Shepard’s little dominance display, and his voice was full of confident victory. “You’re afraid the Commander won’t succeed? Then make her one of _your_ agents. Make her a Spectre. The power and resources of the Spectres will aid her, and the influence and skill of the first human Spectre will aid you.”

The Council remained silent and the onlookers held their breath. Galactic history was about to be made, and it all hinged on a yes or no answer. It took only a moment’s deliberation. Really, after being backed so expertly into a corner, there was only one thing the Council _could_ do.

Tevros speared Shepard with a frosty look. “Commander Shepard step forward. This Council would address you directly.”

Shepard took Udina’s place in front of the Council. As she passed him, he leaned in and whispered maliciously in her ear. “Don’t screw this up, Shepard. You can be replaced.”

She fought the urge to punch him. This was enough of a circus without adding the sight of Humanity’s Ambassador getting his clock cleaned by one of his own people. Her fists clenched, but she continued past him to stand stony faced before the glowing projections of the Councilors.

Tevros looked down, her face pinched as if she tasted something bitter. “It is the decision of this Council that you be granted all the powers and privileges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch.”

“Spectres are not trained, but chosen. Individuals forged in the fire of service and battle,” Valern’s voice was bland, repeating his words from rote memory, “those whose actions elevate them above the rank and file.”

Valern continued with the cool dispassionate distaste of a politician, looking bored. “This Council has recognized your efforts in uncovering the heinous nature of Saren’s crimes as actions worthy of a Spectre.”

Tevros lifted both arms, holding them up on either side of herself, her face relaxed and expressionless. “Spectres are an ideal. They are the embodiment of courage, determination, and self-reliance. They are the right hand of the Council, instruments of _our_ will.” Her eyes narrowed as she held Shepard in her steely gaze. Shepard cocked one hip and did her best to look thoroughly unimpressed. If they thought they could control her they were sorely mistaken.

“Spectres bear a great burden.” His voice flanging with irritation, Sparatus glared down at the unrepentant human. “They are protectors of galactic peace, both our first and last line of defense. The safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold.”

Every single time one of the Councilors opened their mouths, Shepard was struck by how unimportant they made this feel. Here she was the first human to ever be inducted into the Spectres, the most highly regarded special ops force in the entire galaxy, and they were rehearsing lines. Fine. If they were going to treat this like an insult, then so was she.

Tevros lowered her arms again. “You are the first human Spectre, Commander. This is a _great_ accomplishment for you and your entire species.”

Shepard yawned hugely, halfheartedly holding her hand in front of her mouth and Tevros blanched, her face tightening with fury. “Remember that you are now the representative of the entire human race. The success of your kind hinges on your actions from now on.” Her voice shook slightly, testament to the force of her rage and the seriousness of her threat.

_The success of my_ _kind. Right_. Shepard’s mouth twisted in a wry parody of a smile. Y _ou say “jump” and I say “how high” or else humans get banished from the Citadel. Evil blue bitch._

She sketched a mocking bow, keeping eye contact with the enraged asari Matron. “I’m simply _honored_ Councilors.” When she straightened, her playful tone vanished, and she met Tevros’ threat with one of her own. “I’m going to find Saren, and when I do, I’m going to destroy him and everyone who is helping him to find the Conduit. As a Spectre, I could hardly do any less.”

Sparatus nodded his head towards her, acknowledging her determination despite his disapproval. “You have the Council’s support in this matter, Spectre Shepard. Any and all information about Saren’s whereabouts and Matriarch Benezia’s involvement is being gathered at this moment. A report will be ready for you as soon as possible. We would like for you to be able to leave today.”

Shepard didn’t get a chance to ask for details before Tevros cut her off. “This Council is adjourned.”

The Councilors’ projections all winked out at once, leaving Shepard and everyone in the chambers standing in awkward silence. A few of the onlookers congratulated her with a sporadic smattering of applause, but their praises quickly died down and the crowds dispersed.

It took several deep breaths before Shepard felt like she had sufficient enough control over her anger that she wouldn’t attempt to blow up the Council Chamber. God Damned bureaucrats. No, not bureaucrats, gangsters. They were thuggish, crooked, nasty pieces of work who just so happened to be in positions of galactic power.

Anderson and Udina broke into a hushed, fervent argument behind her, but she ignored them. Something still wasn’t sitting right with her. Why hadn’t the Council required Saren to be physically present for his own criminal hearing? His flight into the Traverse had been conveniently aided by the Council’s gross inaction, so was it such a big leap to believe that they had something to do with it?

She barely glanced at Nihlus, though she moved back a little to stand closer to him. The unease roiling in her gut had her on edge and the feeling of being no more than a pawn on a chessboard was doing nothing for her nerves. Though it was certainly going to come as a surprise to whoever was pulling the strings that _this_ pawn had a few moves of her own to make.

“What do you need Shepard?” Nihlus leaned down to speak more discreetly. “I know that look. Whatever you’re planning, you’ll need help.”

Shepard shot him a small feral grin, just a flash of teeth. “I’m going to need you to do something for me.”

His head bobbed in a sharp nod and her grin widened. “Our dear Councilors are going to need someone to look after them while such a dangerous criminal is loose in the galaxy. Someone who can access any information they want at any time that they want. If, while they’re keeping an eye on the Councilors, they decide to look into the Councilors’ personal affairs…” She shrugged with an innocent expression. “It wouldn’t hurt to make sure that Saren doesn’t have them in his pockets. Which I strongly suspect is the case. Especially for Valern, the slimy little lizard.”

“You want me to use Spectre influence to _spy_ on the Council?” Nihlus deadpanned his voice incredulous.

Shepard put her hands on her hips frowning. “I don’t trust them and this whole thing with Saren stinks. Don’t you think it’s a little _too_ convenient that he was just left free to escape at his leisure?”

Nihlus gaped a little, his mandibles fluttering helplessly. “Well when you put it that way it does look suspicious, but-

“Nihlus,” Shepard stepped into his space, forcing the tall male to take an instinctual step backwards, “just trust me on this. Someone on that Council knows more about the Conduit and the Reapers than they’re letting on, and I have no doubts that they’re also helping Saren. You asked if I needed help? Well this is the help that I need.”

Nihlus eyed her silently for a moment and they both listened as Anderson and Udina hissed angrily at each other. Nihlus sighed and shook his head. “You win, Shepard. I’ll pull some strings and get a few Spectres to take the case. I still have some favors I can call in.”

“Thanks.” Shepard winked, causing Nihlus to heave another long-suffering sigh, but his mandibles flared in a small grin.

He looked up over her shoulder and his eyes narrowed slightly, his posture immediately stiffening and face losing its expression. _What the…?_ Shepard turned, confused as to why Nihlus looked like he was about to start a brawl, and saw that it was only Vakarian approaching them with long easy strides.

Vakarian looked curiously back and forth between the two of them. His gaze didn’t linger long on the bristling turian beside her and he stopped at a respectful distance away. He gave Nihlus a small, wary, nod before looking back down at Shepard. She groaned inwardly. She would just deck Nihlus right here if he was going to continue acting like a possessive idiot.

Shepard threw a disgruntled frown over her shoulder at Nihlus and stepped away from the chauvinistic territorial display. They were going to have words about that later; words that may or may not include her peeling off his plates like shelling a crab. Her face must’ve betrayed her dangerous thoughts because Nihlus suddenly looked a little nervous and refused to meet her eyes. _Good,_ she huffed.

She smiled brightly at Vakarian, who looked thoroughly amused. “Congratulations are in order I suppose,” he said, “though the proceedings lacked a little in professionalism.”

Shepard snorted. “Professionalism? There wasn’t anything so gouache as _professionalism_.”

“I’ve never seen one person garner so much _hate_ in the span of a few hours.” He chuckled and Shepard couldn’t help joining in. His laughter was infectious. “You have a gift Commander.”

“And yet, they still made her a Spectre.” Kaiden smirked, walking up with Ashley and Tali in tow. “That’s quite a consolation prize.”

Ashley made a rude gesture at the podium where the Council had sat. “Yeah, first they tell you to fuck off, and then they want you to save the galaxy.”

“No they don’t. This is just them making sure their asses are covered.” Shepard rolled her eyes. “They still believe Saren’s just some sort of Messiah figure terrorist. They don’t actually believe he’s out to destroy _everyone_ , just humans.”

“It’s just so rude! The Admirals of the Fleet would never have treated your case with such undignified bigotry and they certainly would’ve taken the Geth and Reaper threat seriously.” Tali’s melodic voice practically thrummed with righteous anger. Her eyes flashed behind the purple tint of her visor and her fingers curled into delicate little fists.

Shepard shrugged. “The Councilors are either too afraid of the implications of the Reaper threat to take it seriously or they’re in on it with Saren. Either way, it’s out of our hands for the moment. We still have to wait for Captain Anderson to order us out of dry dock.”

Shepard sighed and rolled her shoulders to ease the tension crawling up her neck. She didn’t like the thought of the Councilors being corrupted, but it was a distinct possibility, and the only way of stopping them would be to bring Saren in as soon as possible. Which was why she was wishing that Udina would just shut up already and let Anderson do what he did best and lead them out into the Traverse.

The two men were still arguing, albeit less quietly now, and the word “retirement” was thrown out by an irritable Udina. Shepard froze. _Retirement? Surely Udina couldn’t mean Anderson should retire. He’s one of the best leaders in the Alliance military. Something this big_ needs _his expertise._

“Enough Anderson! It’s been decided.” Udina cut his hand through the air, finishing the argument with his outburst. The rest of Shepard’s companions turned to look at the two men and Udina turned to give Shepard a hard look, his eyes skipping over the non-humans gathered around her with distaste. “Commander, gather your… team… and meet me in my office.”

He jerked his chin at Anderson and stalked away, missing the way Anderson’s lips curled in an angry snarl. Shepard met her foster father’s gaze with concern, but he only shook his head sharply and followed Udina away from the Council Chambers. Whatever _that_ was couldn’t be anything good.

“Well,” Shepard looked around at her group with a resigned scowl, “any of you seen Wrex? Something tells me we’re going to need a great hulking Krogan mercenary on our side soon.”

Vakarian jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the balcony above them. “He’s still asleep I think.”

“Who wants to go get him?”

Everyone went silent and found other things to interest them, leaving Shepard to stand there watching them watch their shoes or rediscovering the fascinating appendages that were their fingers. Tali looked around with surprise and timidly raised a hand. “I-I can go get Wrex. I think…?”

Shepard smiled and winked. “You’re a doll. Don’t worry about getting eaten, I’m pretty sure he likes you.”


	12. Late Yet Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No day is incomplete unless Shepard finds more trouble to get into....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya peeps! Here is chapter 12 for your literary enjoyment! As always, please comment. I love hearing from you guys and it keeps me inspired. Also, please read the end chapter notes, I have an idea I'd like to run by you and input would be most appreciated. Thanks!

* * *

Tali retrieved Wrex and returned, looking no worse for wear, and Shepard led her odd party out of the Citadel Tower. They certainly garnered some strange looks, not that Shepard could blame the people staring at them. Two turians, a quarian, three humans, and a krogan were certainly odd bedfellows. Turians hated humans and krogans, humans hated turians, quarians were pariahs, and krogans hated _everybody_. Seeing all of these species walking in a group together was like watching a volus riding backwards on a unicorn while juggling space hamsters.

Vakarian fell into step beside her. “You would think that we were an unusual sight, the way people keep staring.” He looked down with a grin. “I blame you. First human Spectre, I’d stare too.”

Shepard cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I mean I’d be staring too. Not at you, of course. W-well, yes I’d stare at you, but only because you were a Spectre. I wouldn’t stare at you if you weren’t,” he stuttered, his subvocals trilling with embarrassment. “Not that it isn’t easy to stare at you. You’re very stare at-able… and I’m an idiot.” He slumped in defeat and chuckled ruefully.

“Smooth.” Shepard laughed. He was very easy to fluster. “Don’t worry. I know what you meant.”

He chuffed. “What a great impression to make. Here I was about to ask you for a job.”

“What?” Shepard looked up in surprise as they went down another flight of stairs.

“Yeah,” he looked away, embarrassed. “I quit C-sec after they let Saren go. It was the last straw. All of that bureaucracy and red-tape, all of those _rules_ , and who was helped? The enemy. So I quit.” He shrugged and looked back down at her. “A Spectre won’t be hampered by regulations at every turn. You can go after Saren without having to worry about rules hindering your every step. You have the power to make a real difference, damn the consequences, and I want to be a part of that.”

Shepard looked askance at him, discomfited by the way he was so eager to throw the rules out of the window. Even though she almost made it her life to test how far she could bend those rules to her benefit, there were still lines she wouldn't cross, and she was reminded of the way he had so easily put Dr. Michelle in harm's way to take out her attacker. “Mr. Vakarian-

“Please,” he cut in with an odd sort of humorless laugh, “just call me Garrus. Mr. Vakarian is my father.”

“Okay.” She nodded carefully. “Garrus… welcome to the crew. I’m not going to turn away a skilled soldier -I’ve seen you in action- but I think you’ve misinterpreted a major part of this “Spectre” deal. Being a Spectre means that now the Council controls my actions. For all the power I have to track down Saren as I see fit, the Council still holds my leash.”

Garrus leaned in, eyes bright. “But don’t you _see_? That isn’t totally true! Not even the Council is too high for the Spectres to touch. I overheard what you asked Spectre Kryik to do and that is _exactly_ why the Spectres are as strong as they are. Not even the people who give them orders are out of their reach.”

Her feet passed silently over the polished stone of the floor as she thought about what Garrus said. It wasn’t that she didn’t agree with him, she knew exactly what kind of political clout she’d just gained as a Spectre, but it wasn’t as if she was going to go power crazy. As far as she was concerned, the only things she was after were Saren and the Conduit. She smirked at him. “Hold your horses, kid. We’re not out to bring down the regime. We’re simply after a mad-man and his machines.”

Nihlus stepped between them, forcing Garrus to swerve to avoid barking his shins against a nearby planter. He ignored Shepard’s look of consternation to point out a human male in an Alliance uniform pacing furiously in front of a nearby terminal system. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I think that’s an Admiral.”

Shepard missed a step as recognition slammed her. It was Captain Kahoku, now Rear Admiral Kahoku, and he looked disturbed. The sound of screaming and explosions momentarily blinded her, and she quickly forced the memories away into the little box in her brain labeled “Skyllian Blitz.” Kahoku had led one of the reinforcement teams that had landed on Elysium after the pirates and batarians had raided the colony. His platoon had been the one to help her evacuate the colonists she’d saved and consequently dragged her half-dead ass off the planet.

“Shepard?” Kahoku stopped his pacing, catching sight of her frozen a few yards away.

His voice broke her out of her daze and she snapped to attention, saluting the man that had saved her life on Elysium. “Admiral Kahoku, what’s wrong?”

He looked her over and smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “You keep interesting company Commander. Or should I say Spectre now?”

“Commander is just fine.” She walked towards him. “I’m still not too comfortable with the yoke of Spectre-hood on my shoulders quite yet.”

Kahoku smiled again, though it was strained. “Still, congratulations, Commander Shepard. There isn’t another soldier who deserves the honor as much as you do. Now, I’m sure you’re needed elsewhere. I just saw Ambassador Udina and Captain Anderson go through here like men on a mission. If you’re heading the same way, I’d go now. Neither of them looked very pleased.”

“Udina can wait. He’s good at that.” Shepard smirked and turned to her companions. “You guys go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

Kaiden looked at her as if she’d grown a second head. “And what exactly do you think is going to happen when we all show up without you?”

“So just wait in the lobby.” Shepard grinned. “I promise I won’t let Udina beat you up. I won’t be long.”

Kaiden grumbled, but allowed Ashley to tug him away, the others walking on with them. Garrus hesitated, but after a nod from her, he followed Kaiden from the Tower. Nihlus was a little harder to get rid of.

“Shepard,” he stepped closer to her and Kahoku, “are you sure someone shouldn’t stay with you? I’m afraid of what kind of surprises Saren might have for us, even here on the Citadel.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine. I can handle whatever Saren throws at me, but Kaiden can’t handle Udina by himself. Also, I’m afraid Wrex might crush the little weasel if he annoys him too much so I need the diplomatic one there to keep the peace.”

“Fair enough,” Nihlus chuckled and turned away. “Just don’t take too long.”

Admiral Kahoku watched Nihlus leave. “That is Spectre Kryik? I’ve heard the stories about him. If he’s half as good as they say he is, you’re lucky to have him in your corner.”

Shepard nodded. “Yes, his skill is quite impressive, but you still haven’t answered my question Admiral. What’s wrong?”

Kahoku sighed heavily and lifted his cover to rub a hand through his close cropped hair. He pulled it back down and frowned tiredly. “I’ve been trying to get the Council to grant me an audience, but I’m being shot down at every turn. There’s a very long waitlist, apparently.”

“What for?”

“Some of my men have gone missing.” Kahoku’s frown deepened. “They were investigating some troubling activity in the Artemis Tau Cluster and then they just disappeared. Their most recent report mentioned that they were in the Sparta system, but that was the last I heard from them. It’s been weeks since that report came across my desk.”

Shepard shifted, her curiosity peaking. “What were they looking into?”

Kahoku shook his head. “I’m not at liberty to say, but I can tell you that we’d found the body of a researcher named Armistan Banes on a ship in the area. It’s the team that found him that went missing.”

“Banes, Armistan Banes…” Shepard muttered. Something was niggling in the back of her mind, like a half-remembered dream. She frowned. She knew that name from somewhere, but she couldn’t remember. Holding his name in her mind was like trying to hold on to smoke, but she struggled with her memory, fighting to drag what she knew about this Banes into the forefront. She _knew_ this person…

“Still, the Council refuses to see me. They have more important matters to attend to.” Kahoku broke her from her thoughts and whatever progress she’d made finding the information she needed disappeared, slinking back into the recesses of her long-term memory.

 _Damn…_ Shepard sighed, still feeling like she was missing something vital. _If this Banes really is important, I’m sure his name will pop up again somewhere_. She put a reassuring hand on the Admiral’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about meeting with the Council. Odds are I’ll be sent out that way soon. I’ll check and see if I can find your men. Just send me their last known coordinates.”

“Thank you, Shepard.” Kahoku breathed a sigh of relief. “I just want to know if I should be alerting their families or sending out a rescue team.”

His smile was more genuine this time, if no less tired, and held out his hand. “Now you should catch up with your men. Udina is not a patient man.”

“You’re telling me.” Shepard grinned and shook the hand he proffered. “I’ll let you know if I find my way to the Artemis Tau Cluster.”

They parted, Kahoku heading back towards the terminal he’d been pacing in front of and Shepard down the last flight of stairs and out of the Tower. She stopped just outside of the doors to the Tower and let her eyes adjust to the bright light flooding the outer courtyard. The artificial sunlight was warm on her skin, and she took a moment to enjoy it. While she was standing soaking up the heat infused rays, the events of the morning struck her, and she couldn’t help a small grin. She was a Spectre. The best, of the best, of the best, sir, indeed. The very first of her kind too. Despite the strenuous and bullshit crammed circumstances surrounding her induction to the order, she was a goddamned _Spectre._ So if she wanted to stand here for a minute and enjoy her little ray of fake sunshine, she was damn well going to.

A slight breeze lifted off of the Presidium lakes and blew over her, making the wispy hair too short to be pulled into her bun dance around her face. _Enough dilly-dallying, Shepard, your people are alone with Udina. Go save them already._ She pulled up her omnitool to tell Nihlus she was on her way, but the sound of a hushed argument caught her attention.

She looked around and didn’t see anything amiss, but the voices were growing louder.

“I don’t care how you feel about this Morlan!” The voice that spoke first was deep and male and had the gravely quality unique to krogans. “The good doc is going to bring the goods to _you,_ so you had better be damned well ready to get them to the right people. _Understand_?”

“Y-yes, I understand. Your employer will get the supplies he wants.”

Shepard walked farther into the open courtyard, dismissing the people in it as she searched for the source of the voices. _Both male. One krogan. Due to the clipped diction and high tone, the other one’s probably a salarian._ They should be a hard pair to miss, but she still wasn’t seeing them. She turned slowly and her gaze was drawn towards a small alcove where a path curved away from the common area and disappeared behind a stand of trees. How much did she want to bet that was where the voices were coming from?

Her eyes narrowed. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching her and activated her cloaking device. Shepard disappeared into the shadow of the same trees that hid the krogan and salarian. She swung into the trees above them to get a better view and settled into place just in time to see the krogan shove away the salarian he was threatening with a grunt.

“Hold up your end of the deal, and my employer will hold up his. Just make sure that the doc gives you everything on that list. If she doesn’t, let me know. My employer wants to get it all- by force if he needs to. He has a secret of hers that she doesn’t want known.” He cracked his massive knuckles with a bloodthirsty grin. “I would rather just beat it out of her.”

The salarian nodded quickly and edged around the hulking krogan so that he could shuffle away, presumably into the Lower Wards. Shepard let him leave. She was more interested in what the krogan could tell her. She dropped silently behind him and pulled a blade from her boot, sliding it into a chink in his armor just above his lower spine. The krogan jerked in surprise when he felt the cold of the blade slice through his armor and press into the tender flesh beneath.

“That’s right, buddy,” Shepard chuckled darkly, “you know exactly what will happen if I cut into _this_ bundle of nerves, don’t you?”

The krogan spat an angry curse, snorting air from his nose, but he didn’t move. Shepard could feel the fury building up in his shaking muscles. “What do you want? If it’s money, you’re out of luck.”

Shepard pressed the blade a little harder into his back, making the krogan hiss and arch away. “If you don’t want to by a crying puddle of piss and shit, you’re going to tell me what I want to know. Got it, chuckles?”

“Bitch!”

Shepard kicked the krogan behind his knee and his leg crumpled beneath his weight. He fell to his knees with a muffled cry. She clucked her tongue at him. “That was rude. Now, the doctor your employer is blackmailing, is it Dr. Michel?”

The krogan nodded. “Good boy.” Shepard crooned, twisting the blade and making the krogan whimper. “Next question. What does your employer have over Dr. Michel?”

“I don’t know.” The krogan gasped as Shepard twisted the blade again. “I swear I don’t know. Only Gorbak knows her secret!”

“Where do I find this Gorbak?”

“L-lower Markets, he’ll be watching Morlan’s stall for the doc’s delivery.” The krogan was trembling, arching as far away from the cold steel bite of her knife he could get considering his bulky physiology. “That’s all I know! I swear!”

Shepard lifted the krogan’s left arm, jabbing the knife into his back when he resisted. “Hold your arm up like a good boy… Yes, that’s good. Now hold it riiiight there.”

Faster than the krogan could react, Shepard pulled the blade from his back and jabbed the handle deep into the tissue of his armpit three times, temporarily stalling the beating of one of his hearts. The Krogan fell forward like a sack of potatoes, unconscious.

Shepard stared down at the merc with disgust. Now she was going to be late. She pulled up her omnitool and typed out a message to Nihlus.

_Have a little matter to attend to. Stall for time?_

Her aural implant buzzed and a reply lit up the screen on her omnitool.

_Shepard, get over here now. Udina is livid and I don’t think he’s impressed at all with my “diplomacy.”_

She grinned.

_I need a few more minutes… maybe an hour…_

Nihlus’ reply took a little more time, but her implant buzzed again.

_An hour? What the hell are you doing, Shepard? He’s going to eat me alive!_

She rolled her eyes. What a drama queen.

_Distract him with a laser pointer. Politicians love laser pointers. Gotta go snookums. I have people to maim._

Shepard closed out her omnitool and pulled herself back up onto the courtyard above the alcove and the unconscious merc. She ignored the continuous buzzing in her implant and instead hunted for the C-sec officer she’d seen patrolling the Tower entrance earlier. She de-cloaked in front of him, startling him, and he backpedaled with a shout.

“There’s an unconscious krogan just in those trees right over there. Something tells me he has a bit of a criminal record.” She grinned widely at the startled officer. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

She activated her cloak again and dashed away. The officer cursed as Shepard blinkered back out of sight.

She had a doctor to save…. Again….

 

* * *

 

 

Nihlus closed his omnitool with a muttered curse. Shepard wasn’t answering his messages, which meant that she was probably just ignoring him now. As much as he respected her as an individual, as a professional, she was way too impulsive. Spirits only knew what the hell she was embroiling herself in _this_ time. He growled quietly, feeling his irritation vibrating through his bones.

Ashley stepped up next to him and crossed her arms. “What's the Commander up to now?”

“Who the hell knows?” Nihlus snapped. “She just told me to distract Udina with a laser pointer.” He threw up his hands in a gesture he knew the humans interpreted as exasperation. “What the fuck is a laser pointer?”

Ashley sniggered, garnering the attention of Kaiden, who was being given a verbal thrashing by an irate Udina. Kaiden glared at them over Udina’s shoulder, and Ashley gave him an apologetic shrug, still chuckling.

She opened a pocket on her trousers and pulled out a small cylindrical tube. “ _This,_ ” she said, “is a laser pointer.”

Nihlus looked at it, unimpressed. How was this little metal device supposed to distract the Ambassador? He gingerly took the “laser pointer” from Ashley’s hand and ran a talon over it.

“Just press that button there.” Ashley pointed to a small raised bump in the otherwise smooth surface. “This is a pretty old model, but laser pointers haven’t changed much since they were created, so the effect will be the same.”

He pressed the button and a fiery red dot appeared on the floor. Nihlus jumped slightly and let go of the button. The dot disappeared. “Shit,” he muttered, inspecting the floor for burns, “when you said “laser” pointer, I didn’t think it would be an _actual_ photon pulse beam.”

Ashley began to openly guffaw. “It’s not military grade Nihlus. You just got scared of light.”

He snorted and tossed the little tube back to the human woman. That had been degrading. “What, exactly, is the purpose of such an item?”

“Cat vids.” Ashley grinned.

“You can’t be serious.” Nihlus shook his head. What was with humans and recording vids of _cats_. The extranet was absolutely bogged down with terabytes of the ridiculous fuzzy animals.

“Dead serious.” Ashley pulled up her omnitool and typed in a few short words. “Look. The laser pointer in action.”

Curious despite himself, Nihlus leaned forward to watch the vid that popped up above Ashley’s wrist. A furry, four-legged animal was frantically spinning in circles, chasing a familiar red dot across the floor.

“I can see the humor in envisioning Udina chasing a dot across his floor.” Nihlus sighed and shook his head. “Damnit Shepard, what are you doing?”

Ashley closed her omnitool. “Whatever she’s doing, it has to be important. She wouldn’t leave us to Udina’s tender mercies unless it was necessary.”

Nihlus grunted in response and began to pace, checking his omnitool every so often just in case Shepard responded to any of his messages. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the mental image Ashley had implanted in his mind of Udina scrambling over chairs and desks to catch the illusive red light, but irritation leeched the humor away again.

Shepard was going to pay for leaving him alone with this mess. It was just his luck that Udina was a gigantic asshole and had ignored his authority of the situation to latch onto Kaiden as his scapegoat, choosing to rip into the human rather than deal with a turian. It didn’t matter much to him. Like Shepard, he found politicians to be a useless lot, and the less he had to deal with them, the better.

Listening to Udina berating poor Alenko was giving him a headache, and being under constant scrutiny from the red eyed krogan lounging against a wall was making him uneasy. He didn’t trust Wrex. No doubt the feeling was a mutual one. Why was the krogan still even here? Shepard and her pets-

Pain spiked through his head in a blinding flash, and he halted, too stunned to even react. It was an agony that was becoming all too familiar, and one that was steadily getting worse. His eyes were boiling behind closed lids and he tasted metal on the back of his tongue. The flesh beneath his plates began to crawl and prickle until he fought the urge to rip his plates off and dig until the damnable itching stopped. The world went gray for a moment, wavering in his vision, and then Nihlus heard something in his head pop faintly. He felt heat drip onto the back of his hand.

He looked down at the dark blue droplet and lifted his hand to his nose. His talons came away smeared with his blood, but something wasn’t right with it. The blood had a rainbow hued sheen and beaded up into little perfectly formed balls. Nihlus quickly wiped the blood away. He had to hide it. He didn’t know why exactly. By all accounts, he should be going to see Chakwas or another doctor on the Citadel, but the moment he thought about showing this to anyone, he was overcome with the certainty that he would never see Shepard again.

This wasn’t the first time the pain had visited him. Ever since Eden Prime, the headaches had hit him every few days, followed by the oily blood. Shepard would have him removed from the mission if she knew, not out of any concern for him, but because she demanded the absolute best. If he was left behind…. No, he wouldn’t allow it. He needed to be there. He needed to protect her.

He glanced around, but no one had seen it. Nihlus straightened his slumped shoulders and turned to see Wrex studying him again. He made eye contact with the krogan, and those red eyes narrowed. He’d seen.

Dread curled low in Nihlus’ belly. That krogan was going to become a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is. My plan. Since there are so many side jobs in the game, most all of them fun and interesting in their own way, I feel bad for having to exclude them from my story, especially since so many of them provide ample opportunity for character development. I want to start a side series. Not a whole other story line, but just a series of one-shots that feature Skye embroiled in some job request or another. If you guys could let me know what you think, would you want to read something like that or am I delusional (which I may very well be, you never know). If this is something you'd like to see, leave some requests for one-shots of jobs you want to see her take in the comments below. Thank you so much for reading!


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